Dear Anonymous Teacher

 Dear Anonymous Teacher,

A few weeks ago I had you fill out a survey for me for a PD that I was going to. It was about my leadership style and it asked you about the things I do well and the things that I need to improve on. 45 people completed the survey and I received the results earlier this week. I got a lot of good feedback for my personal growth and it was great reading some of the comments at the end. Those comments do more than the numerical ratings because it lets you hear the thoughts of the people that I work with. The comments taught me that I might be more of a "people person" than I thought and that communication is really important to the people that work here. I learned that I could improve on being more direct with some people and that I don't always seem consistent. But your comment caught my attention the most. It said, "Even though it sometimes feels as though I was a "better than an empty classroom" hire, I am thankful for the opportunities and training provided by working at GCHS." Reading it made me pause the first time and I've come back to it several times since. 

The survey was anonymous and that gave everyone permission to say things that they mean. But it also means that I can't find you to tell you that you're more than a "better than an empty classroom" hire. I don't need to know who you are to tell you that. I know this because you're still here. You show up to do the job of trying to educate and lead children. You mentioned being thankful for training and opportunity. That shows that you're taking it seriously and are conscious about trying to be better. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of working in an organization is that we often compare ourselves to others around us. We see others with more experience or even just someone in a good moment and feel like we aren't enough. We also see others in a time of struggle and wonder why they can't get it together. It's human nature and I'm probably never going to be good enough to change that about the people in any organization. But I can tell you that you matter to this organization. You show up for kids and those kids (even though they stress us out) are always our top priority. 

Over a decade of leading schools has taught me that it's much more difficult today to find teachers than it was when I started. I used to ask all kinds of pedagogy questions in interviews and now I look for people that care. We can teach you how to teach if you're willing to learn. That's you. And it's everyone else that reads this and wonders if they matter or if they are doing well enough at this crazy thing we call education. So do me a favor and throw that phrase out of your mind. No matter who you are, I promise you're good enough.

How Are You Doing?

I had just gotten home from fishing during the Thanksgiving break when I got the call from the Sheriff's Department. My schedule this year hasn't allowed much time to be on my boat and just getting back there was great. I expected the call to be about an ongoing situation with another student. Looking back, I certainly wish it had been. On Sunday, the YoungLife group asked if they could use the gym to meet and celebrate his life and give kids some space to work out what they were feeling. I expected twenty or so kids to be there, but so many more showed up. That night probably helped us so much more on Monday morning, but Monday wasn't exactly easy either. Since Sunday night we have hugged a lot of kids. I've hugged kids that, in the past, I've fussed at as well as anyone for things they have done wrong. 

If you work in schools long enough, I guess it is inevitable that this will happen from time to time, but it never gets easier. But what has changed, is the response from the school community at large. Other schools know what we are going through. Most have probably been there before and they want to show empathy for our loss. Between flowers, offerings to financially support the family, and outward displays of support for the school, their empathy for our situation has been so helpful and I truly believe it is a powerful lesson that we are teaching kids. Empathy says, "I don't feel what you feel, but I can understand that it must be difficult, and I'm sorry." They will use that a lot more in life than some of the other content we teach.

When others have asked me this week, "How are you doing?" My inclination is to talk about my students and staff. "It's been a tough week but, we are getting better," I say. But a colleague this week followed that and said, "I asked how you are doing." It was probably the first time I had stopped to process things myself. Like many of you, I'm tired and I hurt when I see kids hurt. My job is to take care of them and you. Your job is to take care of them and each other. In times of difficulty, we don't always stop to take a record of how we are doing. I gained a new appreciation for those that check on us personally this week and it's something that we all need to do far more often. Even in times that are not in crisis. So my message this week is this: Check in on the people that you care about, especially those that you know don't do a great job of looking after themselves. It always matters.

Time for Reflection

I’m not always good at slowing down to take a minute to reflect. It’s something that I have to force myself to do as a habit. In fact, this blog is a big part of getting me to stop and reflect on the week. Without those forced habits, I am far too task-oriented to stop and appreciate things or think about how they could have been different or better. I do believe that reflection is essential to personal and professional growth, so despite my natural aversion to it, I choose to work on it. But every now and then, reflection will slap you in the face. That happened this week.

Ten years ago this week, I traveled to Washington DC to accept the award for the National Blue Ribbon for Greene Early College, where I had served as the principal the year before. The awards ceremony was on my birthday and I felt so proud to be there, but also knew that other than filling out the grant application, I had very little to do with the award. The teachers at the school had earned that and I was just there to represent them. Fast-forward a decade and I found myself having dinner with the governor, surrounded by some of the brightest minds the Old North State has to offer. On the drive home, with my wife asleep in the passenger’s seat, I had time to reflect. 

I’ve had some pretty awesome opportunities in my life. And when you have dinner with the governor, Eric Church and several professors and authors that are decades ahead of their peers, you can’t help but wonder how you got there. That meal is a long way from mucking horse stalls and shelling butter beans that were a regular part of my youth. And once again, just like I knew from the Blue Ribbon award, I’m there because of the people that help me do the work. I’ve been exceptionally lucky to work with people that care about what they do. So on the ride home, and with Thanksgiving a week away, it hit me like a ton of bricks just how thankful I am for the opportunities I’ve had on behalf of the work you all do. As a team, you deserve a lot of extra credit. So over the next week, I hope that you also get to reflect and appreciate where you are and the people that helped you. So little in our personal or professional lives is accomplished on our own. Even when we hit a big goal or milestone, there are people supporting us or filling the voids so that we could focus on that task. Schools and the lives of students and educators certainly are no different. So somewhere in the next week, I hope that you get the chance to reflect on that. Like me, I'm sure you've already come a long way from where you started. 

As a Parent

One of the unique benefits that most educators don't acknowledge enough is the extra time we often get to spend with our own children when they go to our school or one nearby. My daughters have always spent a disproportionate amount of time in school. When I was a teacher and coach, they tagged along to practices and events, and later when I became an administrator, they attended arts and athletic functions when I had a duty to be there. When I initially started working in Greene County, I was still living in Pitt County and my children went to school there, but it didn't take long for me to bring them with me if nothing more than the added benefit of seeing them more and supporting them the best way I could.  My wife has generally left school information and functions to me (until the girls got older and didn't always want me there) and I was always able to be involved as a parent in their school functions. My experience with my children and their schools has not been the normal experience for most parents that have a career. 

This year, I've started to understand and appreciate the more traditional role of a working parent as I've been much more involved in things that have not allowed me to be as present. Both of my parents worked, and they had to prioritize what they were able to attend to see me do, and for the first time, I've had to do the same thing. This week was particularly tough as I couldn't attend Rylee's last tennis match of the season because I was hours away. I had to check in with Reagan and her day via Facetime, rather than our usual discussion when I grabbed her from the car rider line. We are making it work, but it's not always the same. However, I have an advantage. Over the past several weeks, several of you have reached out to me to send pictures of my daughter in class or at tennis. I've even gotten a few funny stories about things you've seen. It's as if you knew that I, as a parent, would want to see that and you shared that experience with me and I can't tell you how much it means. 

As a parent, we all want to support our children. We trust their teachers to not only instruct them in content curriculum, but in our absence, we often need them to support our children in other ways as well. Ultimately, I wish that every parent was able to share in some part of the experience that you have given me this year when I wasn't able to be there.  The unexpected anecdotes of our child's success do amazing things to brighten our day and reassure us that they are doing well. Taking a minute to do this is one of the most customer-focused things an educator can do. As a parent, I want that for every parent. As a principal, this is ultimately why I ask you to try to prioritize parent communication. I'm not sure if the pictures and texts that I received will make it to your Parent Contact Logs, but they are exactly why we do them. As a parent....thank you.

What Does a Graduate Look Like?

At the end of every school year, the Senior homeroom teachers sit and go through the cumulative folders of every graduate from our school and triple-check that everything is right and accounted for. One of those steps involves checking over each student's final transcript. It was a habit many years ago to shout out the class rank if it was exceptionally low or high. The first time I heard it, it quickly became one of those little idiosyncracies that turned me off. (In full disclosure, I am aware that administrators have strange quirks about our schools. We are not always right or wrong on these, but it doesn't take long to find them. I am no exception!) I guess the thing that rubbed me wrong was that I didn't see the point. I have two daughters that work hard to be among the top of their class, and I'm exceptionally proud of them. But if I'm being honest, their class rank doesn't define anything about how successful they will or will not be as an adult. Class rank is about academic success (which is really awesome) but I've never been in a job interview that asked me for my 11th-grade test scores nor have those scores ever helped me in the difficult moments of being a parent. Life isn't about scores, it's about navigating people and situations.

Near the end of last school year, I had the opportunity to participate in a statewide think tank of students, teachers, administrators, higher education leaders, business owners, and parents. Our goal was to define what exactly we wanted a graduate from North Carolina to look like. Several, multi-hour Zoom meetings allowed us to talk with one another to express frustrations and celebrations of what the modern workforce and society need from students today. We started with 50 competencies and by the end, we narrowed it down to 7. This week, I had the privilege of sitting on the media panel to unveil those seven competencies to the world. As a part of the announcement, they also filmed a video (you can watch it here and see several of our classes). 

So how did we do? I think we did pretty well to wrap up what a successful adult looks like today. Hopefully, the idea of teaching these skills to students isn't foreign to you. Many of these have been a part of our STEM initiative and even our curriculum maps for years. But whether they are new to you or something that you've been trying to practice for a long time, this week was important. It was a reminder from the very top of our school system that teaching students to be competent adults has a lot more to do with skills than test scores. And if you're a caring teacher, I know you can appreciate that.

Anything But a Backpack

I've had so many questions from students, teachers, and parents about homecoming next week. I think everyone is excited about it this year, including our community. But without a doubt, the most questions I have received have been about Anything But a Backpack Day. Everyone wants to know what they can bring to school in place of a backpack. I've had requests for everything from shopping carts, to pets and siblings. (By the way, pets and siblings are not allowed!) But the idea of it got me thinking about backpacks. When I attended school, I carried textbooks and notebooks. In a 6-period day, you carried around a lot of books and they easily filled a backpack on a night with multiple homework assignments. But today's school looks different. Textbooks have been replaced with online course content and for most subjects, notebooks have been replaced with iPads. So what's in those backpacks that kids keep carrying around?

The answer to this came to me from what I see teachers carry too. I laugh each morning as I see many of you haul your lives, sometimes in 3-4 bags into work each morning. Everything from lunch and snacks to a change of clothes for after school and all of the accompanying things that make our day better. Somewhere along the way, we started bringing our lives to school with us. We take the things that make us comfortable and come prepared for the things that we think we might need. And if you look a little deeper, we bring more than physical parts of our lives to school with us as well. We bring good and bad emotions, problems and successes, and all other parts of us to school each day. Those things that we bring are much more complex than a textbook or notebook to understand. 

So is it so strange that a student thinks that a sibling or a pet should come to school with them? I don't think so. Those things are as much a part of their lives as a hoodie or water bottle that they drag around. But the silver lining in their request is that they feel good enough about this place that we call school, and they trust the environment enough to bring the things most precious to them along. And similarly, we all unpack those intangible things that we bring with us in trust as well. Thanks for bringing anything but your backpack to school, but more importantly, thanks for making this a place where others can bring their items as well. 

The Storm

Several years ago, on a summer afternoon, I was following a school of fish through a marsh just behind a barrier island on the coast. My father-in-law and I had caught several, and we were as excited as little kids. I'd be lying if I said I did not notice storm clouds a few miles off from us. I think I even said out loud, "We might get a little wet in a few minutes." I generally don't play around with coastal storms when I'm on the water, but I was probably blinded by the thought of catching just one more. I didn't know that the storm that I was seeing was a water spout that was moving onshore and turning into a tornado. By the time I recognized the danger, the storm was on top of us. The wind and sideways rain made it almost impossible to see the front of my boat as I tried to navigate away from the storm. I remembered having to coach myself into breathing slower and not panicking as I inhaled water coming at my face. It was over in a few minutes of chaos, but it was as scared as I'd ever been on the water. 

On Wednesday, that memory came back to me as I joined several students and staff members before school at the Meet You at the Pole prayer. The event takes a few moments to rally students, staff, and community members to pray for schools and the people in them. It's another one of the post-COVID things that I was happy to see come back. One of the prayers quoted the book of Mathew and the storm that the disciplines found themselves in. Maybe it was the impending hurricane that I knew was coming later in the week or maybe it was experience talking in my head, but I knew, in more ways than one, a storm was coming. 

October is generally one of the more stressful months for educators and students. It is usually jam-packed with events and the newness of school has worn off a bit. Grades and expectations become real things rather than something said at a staff meeting or written on a syllabus. Things like homecoming week and field trips to the state fair compete with the end of the marking period and due dates for STEM grand challenges. And just like me following a school of fish for fun, we can all get distracted until it is too late to see that a storm is upon us. We talk a lot about self-care for teachers these days, but rather than finding reactive measures to destress, I'd like to propose a proactive one as we embark on a traditionally stormy month ahead. Carve out a few moments each day to look at the horizon and prepare. Make it a habit to know what is coming up and talk to your students and fellow department members about how to manage what needs to be done. Be strategic and be vocal about it. Don't wait until the storm hits you. 

Curiosity

A decade ago, NASA landed a robot on the surface of Mars. The 6-wheeled, 1900-pound device was named Curiosity and over the past ten years, it has been sending back pictures and information to us on Earth in its effort to determine if and when there may have been water on the surface of Mars and if there had been life there swimming in it. It continues to travel over mountains and through craters to collect data as we learn more about the planet closest to our own. 

I recently picked up a book about the engineering marvel that led to the Curiosity rover getting to Mars and found that our own story shared some parallels with the mission. While we don't have the need for rocket scientists and the development of a sky crane to get our jobs done, the level of teamwork, reliance on others and adjustment to meet our goals sounded very similar. Undoubtedly, over the years, I've approached many of you under the guise of my own curiosity about how we approach a problem or look for growth. I probably even used the word. But the thing that I love the most is that ten years later, Curiosity is still looking, still assessing data, and still searching for more. 

If there is one trait that I hope all leaders in a school have, it's curiosity. Students, teachers, counselors, principals, and district leaders all need to remain curious about what we can do next. Curiosity leads us to discover something we may never have found and those discoveries lead to more growth. And growth is what we are all about. So stay curious teacher leaders, but more importantly, follow your curiosity and inspire students to do the same. You never know what you might find.

What Does Leadership Look Like?

Over the summer I've been invited to speak with a lot of groups. Generally, they leave the content of the message up to me and when they do, I almost always choose to talk about leadership. As a principal, I am often looked to as the leader in the building and the majority of my talks have been with other building and district leaders, so they get the formality of that position. But this week, I was asked to speak with a different audience. My task was to speak to all undergraduates at the University of Mt. Olive in teaching majors. My first thought was to find a different topic, but I caught myself. This is exactly who needs to hear about leadership the most. Within a short time, each of those students will be in their first year as a classroom teacher and some administrator will walk into their room to do their very first observation. The very first standard on that observation covers leadership. 

I think we confuse leadership and authority too much, so I needed a way to explain how a first-year teacher can and should be a leader in their classroom and in their building. Being a leader does not mean being in charge. Instead, I focused on the traits of a leader that involve inspiring others, collaborating to remove barriers, and meeting expectations so that the people that they collaborate with can meet theirs. In reality, leadership is more about a dance with others than a set of directions to them.  So how do you break that down so that a 19-year-old pre-service teacher can understand it? You tell a story. And in my stories to them about teacher leaders throughout our building, I realized a common theme. Each of these stories involved leadership that became contagious. While the traits that were demonstrated were never taught in a classroom lesson or in a PLC, in every instance you can find a student or a colleague that saw leadership in action and copied it. Good leaders build more leaders. That's what leadership looks like. 

The Teacher Shortage

In case you've been hiding under a rock over the past few years, I'd like to point out that there is a teacher shortage in our state and across our nation. As a principal, I can tell you that it certainly has gotten more difficult to find candidates for teaching positions. A decade ago, I could scan through a list of recent graduates or select from a pool of people that applied online. Today, depending on the position, it's more like finding one candidate that you can work with and train to become a great teacher. It's a problem that isn't singular to teaching right now, as the job market has greatly expanded and left many industries searching for human capital to fill their needs. So why is a teacher shortage considered a crisis while others are not? The answer is simple: We don't have the time. A labor shortage in manufacturing means you have to wait for the products that you want a little longer. There's a similar wait for sectors of the service industry that annoys us when we want something now. But a teacher shortage doesn't get the benefit of waiting. When students don't have a teacher, that time is lost and will likely never come back. It's a huge opportunity cost that impacts every child in every room that is left without a qualified person to guide and instruct them. 

This crisis hasn't been ignored as education leaders and policymakers struggle to rework licensure pathways and fight for improved salaries to attract and retain people to education. And while making teaching an economically competitive occupation is necessary, if any of us is being honest, it's not why we chose the job. Most of us chose to be a teacher because we were inspired by other teachers. Maybe it was a family member or maybe it was someone that taught you. That inspiration sparked interest in something that we could see ourselves doing. And while lawmakers work to improve salaries and budgets to make schools run, it's that other part that I think we need to work on. That's the part that is in our control. 

So here's my big question: Do our students look at us and see the parts of our job that we enjoy? I'm sure they hear the news on teacher pay and undoubtedly they see frustration of the bad days, but hopefully they also see it when you enjoy what you do and feel effective in what you have accomplished. I strongly believe that you are what you pay attention to and if we are only focused on the negative parts of teaching, then no matter what pay scale gets adopted, we will miss out on a generation of potential educators because they never got to see the enjoyment of education. So while we push policymakers to improve the things within their control, I believe it is up to us to promote the things that we control. I sincerely want you to enjoy your job, but more importantly, I want your students to know that you do. The generation that follows them depends on it.

Metaphors

As we started back to school this week, I realized all too quickly how different this year was going to be for me being away from the building at times. I spent most of this week in Raleigh at the State Board meeting and workshop on strategic goal alignment. (I know, it sounds REALLY glamorous!) I tried hard to leave Dr. Willis, Mr. Jones and Mr. Simms alone, but inevitably I found myself texting them to ask about school and how things were going and even inserting myself to make decisions when I didn't really have to. It's a big adjustment for me to be away and still feel like I'm doing my job for the school. 

While I was at the State Board workshop, we started our work with a metaphor. The state committed itself to several goals and objectives not long before the pandemic changed everything and now the question was, where are we on this journey? Did the plane ever leave the airport? Did we take off and have to make an emergency landing? Did we finish a leg of our journey, but got delayed to our destination, or did we make it farther than we thought we would? As we discussed our status related to the goals, we continued to use the metaphor to express how we feel about school progress, the impact of the past two years, and where we ultimately want to be. It was a great exercise and somehow relating our progress to something very familiar made it easier to talk about and relate to. 

Later in the week, school performance grades and growth scores were officially released and the statistical realities of the impact on schools were made public. In many ways, it is what we expected, but still, a tough pill to swallow compared to the progress we were making before. Any move backward in the land of student growth isn't what you want to see. So where are we? I believe that the first leg of our journey was rerouted and over the past two years, we fought the turbulence of the flight and looked for a place to land. We were delayed and missed our intended connection. (If this has ever happened to you, you are well aware of the feeling.) But the trip wasn't canceled and on Monday, we took off on the next leg of our journey. We are ascending and on our way to the next destination. I'm happy to be flying with you and I can't wait to make it to where we are going together. Just hold on, because it is going to be a heck of a ride. We have somewhere to be!

Ben

 As the week of our Summer Enrichment Camp concludes, I have to share a great story. One of our students, Ben, almost didn’t get to go. Ben is in a wheelchair and just two weeks ago, had another brain surgery. His stitches were removed the day before we left, but his doctors cleared him because of how excited he was to see the nation’s capital. On Wednesday morning, as we prepared to leave Greene Central, the bus company notified us that the wheelchair lift did not work. Ben was devastated. After a few minutes of frustration and tears, two of our teachers decided that they would take Ben’s family SUV with the wheelchair carrier and follow the bus to DC in hopes that there would be a solution when we arrived. Several phone calls later, we had a second bus waiting for us when we arrived. However, that bus had a wheelchair lift that only worked temporarily and we waited for over an hour on the side of the road for a solution. You could see the pain in Ben’s eyes as he felt that everyone was waiting because of him. Overnight, our driver went to Maryland and swapped the bus again for one with a working lift and arrived back at the hotel at 1:30am. The next two days were much better for everyone and we all had a great time. 

Our Summer Enrichment students had opportunities to learn a lot about biodiversity, government, art and literary elements throughout the week. But I believe we all also learned how difficult life can be for a disabled person and how easy it is to take that for granted. I also have to commend our students and teachers that never once complained or made Ben feel different. They did everything they could do to be inclusive and to make sure that Ben was able to see and experience everything that they could do. We teach students a lot of things in school, but perhaps the most important thing we can ever teach them is empathy. Because of a little patience, a lot of persistence and some empathy, Ben got to take a picture next to FDR, both in their wheelchairs. 

The News

I've had a lot of opportunities to speak with the media over the past week. Most interviews have inquired about our school, my past, and my beliefs about education or leadership. Most have done an excellent job in trying to portray the special parts of our school. Even a few of the kids that we struggle with managed to make their way into a local news segment, and it made me chuckle to know that even the difficult ones seem to know what we are striving for if you make them answer the question. The news this week made me swell with pride and several times I found myself going back to see just how many people had viewed the articles or interviews. It's captivating and maybe even a little narcissistic, but I'm not too proud to admit that I started to enjoy the attention. It's great being on the right side of a news story.

Then I heard about the news of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Another school shooting. Children and teachers dead. The news erupted with the story and the all-too-typical debates over gun laws, mental health, and school security measures. After reading the events of that afternoon, my instinct was to turn off the news. I didn't want to hear it anymore. I'm sick of it. The same news that I had loved hours before, was now giving me the horrific details of yet another tragic incident. 

I'm not writing this to debate politics or gun laws. I'm not telling anyone that I know the answer. But I can tell you that my children, your children, and all children deserve to go to schools like the ones that were in the news earlier this week. They deserve to feel safe and protected without feeling like they are in a prison. They deserve to thrive, and when given the option between this week's news stories, there isn't anything I wouldn't give to provide them all with the happier of the two. 

Our jobs as educators have changed a lot over the past few years. Not just due to COVID and learning loss, but, also as a response to a changing society. Like so many times before, the role has been given to educators to keep children safe. But there is something that we can all do every day in preparation and prevention of the events like the one at Robb Elementary School. It is written all over our school. 

Choose Love

Choose Hope

Choose Joy

Choose Peace

And while it could be debated that teaching these ideals cannot stop a madman from choosing to target students, I believe that these values are contagious. They grow in a community and they begin to change the hearts and minds. So in a week full of news, some great and some awful, thank you for continuing to teach love, hope, joy, and peace to students. Thank you for caring for them. Thank you for giving your time, your food, and your money to them. Thank you for loving them in what has been a very tough year to be an educator. I promise you are winning and if you keep it up, there will be more good news to come.

Highlight Reel

This is the time of the year when football coaches and scouts visit the school to speak with prospective recruits for the upcoming year. Scouting players is one of the situations where the ones that show early interest can usually recruit the top talent. These coaches have seen highlight reels of the athletes and there's something that they liked. Based on that film, they make a visit and talk to the student, his coach, and his family to tell them about their program. It's an interesting thing to watch as both sides almost flirt with one another. But none of this happens without the highlight reel. 

Football highlight reels have become high-tech. Now they look professionally put together, they identify the player before the play they want you to see, and they are digitally cut and spliced to give you the most action in just a couple of minutes. A player's whole prior season can be assembled into 2-3 minutes and a handful of their best plays. It's a glimpse of how good they can be at their best. But any good coach knows, this isn't reality. 

Highlight reels never show the fumbles, dropped passes, or missed tackles. These are the things that players dread, coaches preach against and fans boo. They happen to every player and it's a real part of the game. To prevent these bad moments, coaches and players spend time planning, drilling, and practicing. It occupies a lot of time and that effort never makes it to a single highlight reel. 

As we begin to close out this school year, we have focused a lot on the places where we have found struggles. Student behaviors and apathy, adaptations in instruction, changes in COVID protocols, and all of the other stressors are where we focused a lot of our time. We tried not to fumble, but sometimes we did. And when we did, we worked to fix it and keep it from happening again. These things took a lot of time, effort, and patience and I'm glad we put that effort in. But what about our highlight reel? If you could direct a 2-minute clip of your best events and moments this year, what would make the cut? I think it's very important to think about that at this time of the year. You've given a lot of time and attention to the problems and needs that you faced, but I'm betting that those efforts produced a lot of really memorable moments for you and your students. Don't forget your highlight reel. It's the parts that show your best impact and it's the moments that everyone deserves to see.

Will Work for Beer

Teacher Appreciation Week always gets me thinking about the educators that influenced me. This week, I remembered a teacher and coach that inspired me a lot, even after I graduated. Mr. Baker was my AP US History teacher and cross country coach. No doubt, I took a lot from him since I became a history teacher and cross country coach myself. He was a mentor and guide through most of my high school years, but at times, his students struggled with where to place the line between mentor and friend. All teenagers push that limit and good teachers show us where it is. 

In my Senior year, our cross country team had been pretty successful. Coach Baker was driving us to a regional championship and a graduated member of our team had decided to follow the bus to come to cheer us on. Our coach always tried to get us in the right mindset before a race. He wanted us to be serious about it and even had a "silent within 10 minutes of arriving" rule. But with a friend driving behind us, the 17 to 18-year-old boys just couldn't pass up the opportunity to flash our "best sides" from the back of the bus. And wouldn't you know it, Coach Baker caught us from the rearview mirror. He immediately pulled the bus over and fussed us out better than we could ever remember. In frustration, he tore his hat from his head and broke the snaps on the back. When the bus started again, there was no need to remind us of the silent rule. 

We ran pretty well that day if memory serves me well. On the way home, we stopped at a gas station for snacks. Behind the counter, there were hats for sale and the team thought we needed to replace the hat that our coach broke as a sign of peace. Now if you're wondering what kind of hats are sold at a country gas station, you're thinking in the right direction. The most appropriate hat we saw had a patch that read, "Will Work for Beer." We pitched in a couple of bucks each and presented him with the hat at the bus. Coach Baker broke out in laughter and it seemed that somehow, we had restored that relationship. He wore the hat the rest of the way home. 

Today, I preach a lot about building relationships because I believe it is just as important as curriculum. But there's a wise saying in education: "You can't love them into being stupid." Good teachers care for us, maybe even love us, but great teachers remind us of why we are really there. They teach us purpose. If Coach Baker had not broken his hat in an effort to set us straight, we probably would not have done well that day. He had to set us straight, but despite that, we knew he still cared for us. And we cared about keeping that relationship enough to buy a him a silly hat. So for Teacher Appreciation Week, here's a big thanks to the teachers that care enough to teach students the important things in life. I can tell you from experience that those lessons carry on much farther than your classrooms. 

Pink Shoes and Art Teachers

My daughter, Reagan, inherited my love of shoes. She has her own style, and lately, she has been obsessed with platform Converse hightops. She saw a pink pair online and has been searching for them for months. Converse doesn't sell them anymore in the US and the online auctions have them going for $300 or more. She managed to find them through Australia's Converse website for just $100. Throw in a promo code and the exchange rate, and that's just $64 US. But the problem is they don't ship outside of Australia. Undaunted, Reagan reached out to her grandfather, who had told her about a cousin of his that lived there. She pleaded with him to contact his cousin to see if she could ship the shoes to her and then have her ship them to the US. After figuring out payment, several phone calls and emails and some help from half the world away, the pink shoes arrived this week. I don't think she's taken them off other than to sleep and shower since.

My daughter's ability to access resources through her connections to others is known as social capital. Our social capital is the web of people that we know and those that know them. A large social capital gives us access to knowledge and resources much grater than what we own ourselves. It's the reason for the old addage, "It's not always what you know, but who you know." But not everyone has a grandfather with a cousin in Australia, and we all don't carry around the same social capital. This was the theory behind my doctoral dissertation. There are marginalized students all around us every day, and we can play a role as their social capital. When we have relationships with students, we give them access to our knowledge, experiences and resources. They also gain access to the people that we know beyond our school. And when students don't always have the social capital at home, they lean heavily on us to fill those gaps.

During Spring Break, I received a text from our art teacher about attending a first-generation celebration  for a former student that we had been keeping up with. Julene was about to graduate college with a degree in Art Education. Julene's story isn't like most students that become educators. When she was at Greene Central, she was no stranger to discipline issues early on. Her incident history shows infractions for inappropriate language, disruption, skipping class, insubordination and fighting. The mural on our math hall was done in an after school detention as a punishment for skipping class. Towards the end of her time with us, she had gained some social capital with a few teachers, and was inspired by her art teacher, Ashley Shiosaky. She stopped getting into trouble and leveraged her new resources to follow that path to college. She needed help along the way as a first-generation student on filling out paperwork and financial aid. She needed support when she had a baby and when she needed a way out of a difficult relationship with the father. But she had the social capital to navigate all of that through the same people that she had come to depend on in high school. 

In just a few days, Julene will finish her teaching internship, graduate ECU, and become an art teacher. She has already accepted a job at a nearby high school. She's still leveraging her social capital here to figure out how to sign up for benefits like insurance, something she's never had. In a time when we need young people that are willing to become teachers more than ever before, we can see just how important it is to invest in our young people as their social capital. If we expect them to navigate into the unknown without an example, then we have to be the example and fill in the gaps for all of the questions and fears along the way. When you become a piece of social capital, the relationshiop doesn't end with a bell or a semester for that student. You are forever part of their web of resources. But the great thing about social capital theory, is that Julene now gets to become social capital for someone else. Her new knowledge and experiences let her impact a classroom full of students. I sincerely hope that she gets to find a student just like she was, so that she can answer their questions. This is how you change the world.

Trying Not to Fail

Last week, my blog was about defining success. The summary is that student success should be measured much differently than college acceptance, a full scholarship, or a six-figure salary as an adult. Successful students become contributors to their community. While the definition of success was fresh in my mind, I traveled to Raleigh this week for professional development. As a part of this workshop, I got to hear Dr. Dudley Flood speak about equity in education. Trust me, if you don't know him, look him up. He's a WEALTH of knowledge. He's much older now and has a foundation that others run in his namesake. He's one of those older people that you just want to listen to. I was pinned on his every word and one particular sentence caught my attention. "Trying not to fail is not the same as success." Please take a second and think about that sentence. Seriously, stop reading and think. 

It's no secret that this has been a tough year for educators. The instant readjustment to school has been painful at times as we deal with behavior issues, attendance issues, apathy, and students that are simply unprepared for the courses that we teach. Some have done fine, but others are failing. At times we have done so much to try to engage them and at this point, many of us have grown tired and feel that we are failing as educators. No one likes to fail, so at different points, we have a spark. Students turn in assignments late or we have just one more conversation with a few students to convince them to do their best. I have days that I am right there with you, wishing I had done a little more. We are all trying not to fail. 

In a few days, we will all get a much-deserved break. Enjoy it. You earned every second. But when you come back for the final five weeks of school, I am going to ask for your very best. It will take excitement, motivation, communication, and every teacher trick that you have in your arsenal. It will undoubtedly take patience and understanding. It will certainly take love. So please enjoy your break and time to recharge. We have important work to do when you get back, and when you do, I am going to ask for success over trying not to fail. 

Success

This week I had a chance to participate in the first of three "Portrait of a Graduate" meetings. These meetings are held between all types of community and school stakeholders and are designed to guide some conversation on what successful graduates from our schools can do. The first thing that jumps out at you in these meetings, is that we are assessing the absolute wrong skills of students today. Parents, businesses, and almost every other stakeholder said that they wanted students that were better communicators, better problem-solvers, and to be more civically minded. Unfortunately, we don't measure those things in a test at all. It's not something that you can bubble a sheet to figure out, and that doesn't work well for the people that measure schools. We spent some time starting to talk about what success for graduates today looks like and that conversation will be carried out in future meetings. It was a long first meeting, but I enjoyed it. 

During the meeting, I had to ignore a phone call from an unknown number. When I listened to the message, it was a business owner asking if I could be a reference for a former student that had listed me. Generally, I am happy for students that ask to use me as a reference, but I don't get many calls about it. It was late, so I returned the call the next day. The student in question was a girl that graduated in 2014. She had a baby her Senior year and didn't initially come back to school afterward. It took a lot of coordinated help throughout the district to get her to try to finish, but she agreed to come work in an empty room that was a part of the Pre-K center. Mrs. Davis and I took turns watching the baby, while the student finished the work necessary to pass the classes of her last semester. When she finished, I made her promise that she would work hard to be a great example for her little girl. It wasn't going to be easy for her, but something told me that she could do it. Since that time, I have kept up with this former student through social media. She shared her daughter's first day of school with me, and I always have enjoyed watching that little girl grow up in pictures. 

When I spoke to the employer, she told me that I was the only reference that she had listed. She asked about how she had been as a student. For some strange reason, I remembered it well. She was an average student academically, but she was spunky and didn't mind working for things. That's what got her to graduate. It's also what made her a good mom and now it was making her step out and try something new. When I explained this to the employer on the phone, her response stopped me. She said, "Well isn't that what success really is?" She's right. Somehow we have got to start teaching children that success isn't a six-figure job or a full scholarship to a prestigious university. Success is being a productive member of society in whatever you choose and supporting yourself and your family in doing it. Years later, my former student had figured out a way to show me that she was being successful, and I absolutely loved it. 

Why Do We Do This Job? - Part 4

The stories of teachers in this series have all been of educators in the back half of their careers. Their experiences and wisdom earned along the way are generally insightful for us all. But when our school elected a 6th-year teacher as our Teacher of the Year, I felt that it was important to understand her perspective as well. The majority of Emily Lahr's teaching experience has been in a time of educational turmoil. Given her education, drive, and youth, she could have decided at any point to go and use her talents elsewhere. So I had to ask her, "Why do you do this job?"

Mrs. Lahr's mom is a middle school business teacher, and while you might think that she was just joining the family business, I think you'd be wrong on this one. Emily always thought she was a biology major as a route to medical school. But when she started helping teach lab classes, she found real fulfillment in helping turn on that lightbulb in student's brains. When it was time for graduate school, she chose education over medicine. I remember recruiting her and I convinced her to come check out our school to see if it was a good fit for her. I'm always impressed when potential hires take me up on that, because that's true initiative. She took the job and suffered the wrath of being a young teacher and coach amongst "the boys" of the athletic ranks. She gave it back to them just as quick as they dished it out. 

So when we started talking about why she chooses to be a teacher, she gushed about getting former students to a national science fair. Their research on caffinated soybean plants was enough to get the judges attention despite the handmade trifold board amongst the professionally printed posters. The same college girl that was a full-blown science geek got to bring that back through her students. And there it was; her reason why she does this job. Emily Lahr is still a student. Being a teacher allows her to learn something alongside her students every day. Some days she learns a lot about content and other days she learns a lot about people. But every day is a lab and she's still doing research. 

Her family always thought they would have a doctor in the family when Emily finished school. That may still be the case. Emily is currently working toward her PhD and her study idea is a pretty neat one, but that's probably a story for a different time. Right now, she is still a teacher and you might need to be careful, because she does this job because she's studying you. 

Note: After we talked about this, Emily and I spent some time just talking about the state of education today. We discussed hopes and fears and big take aways. She told me that the first big lesson that a teacher needs to learn is how to control the chaos in the room to make it productive chaos. I think that's a great metaphor for all education right now. We have to control the chaos and make it productive. I think we can do that.

Was I a Bad Teacher?

If you work in any type of management position long enough, you will hear about the Peter Principle. It's the idea that if you are good at your job, you will continue to be promoted until you are no longer good at your job. You rise to your level of incompetence and then stay there. Promotions are generally given to people that excel in their field and eventually, that means that you manage other people that do the job that you used to do. Unfortunately, there is no correlation between performing a job skill and leading or managing a team. In fact, the opposite is generally true instead. So in our world, if you want to advance as an educator, or you want to make more money, that generally means you leave teaching and become an administrator. But outside of helping here and there with instruction, not much of what I did as a teacher has anything to do with what I do as a principal. In fact, according to the research, chances are that if I am a good principal, there's a greater chance that I wasn't that good as a teacher. The jobs are just that different. 

But what about all of the teachers that do a great job, like what they do, but want to find ways to be paid well or promoted based on their work? Shouldn't there be something out there that keeps this expertise in teaching? A group in our state has been working on a proposal and this week, I had an opportunity to hear more about it and to talk with some legislators that are trying to make it happen. (You can read much more about it here.) It is an interesting proposition, and one that pays educators based on what they do rather than their years of service. It is also fluid from year to year, so a teacher can step back when they need to and advance when they want to. If you take a minute to read up on it, I'd love to have your feedback. It is the beginning of a conversation about how to fix the teacher pipeline and how to adequately pay teachers for their work and while we may not have all of the wrinkles ironed out yet, it's good that we are having the conversation. Especially if that conversation means that good teachers can find a way to stay in the classroom.

Now I guess I just need to come to terms with some hard truths. If I am considered a good principal, that either means I beat the odds and happen to have been a good teacher, or perhaps I wasn't that good in the first place. Or maybe I was a good teacher, and I've risen to my level of incompetence. Either way, it's a good thing I have plenty of good teachers around me to make up for it.

The Price of Gas

I'm not one to blame politicians or individuals for the current cost of gas, but when I filled up my SUV this week at just under $85, it was enough to get me thinking. Who can I blame for this problem and how do I get this fixed? As a student that still loves economics, I know that there are a lot of factors that play into our current cost at the pump. We want there to be a simple answer or some little thing that can fix it all, but that's very rarely the case. Some problems are quite complex, but there are also some problems that are more simple than we would like to make them. 

This week I asked everyone to regroup on some basic classroom management. It's the time of year when educators are tired and students get restless. That's usually a recipe for problems that might have been avoidable earlier in the year. Small fires in your classroom can turn huge if they are not managed, but how you manage them also matters. There are two ways to handle a fire: you can throw water on it and put it out or you can throw gas on it and watch it explode only to burn itself out. It's not a complicated problem, managing student issues is all in how you choose to put the fire out.

So why does student management always seem more complicated than it has to be? We focus our attention on why students don't do what they should do, or how they make bad choices or react poorly in a given situation. Our attention is on them...the fire. Unfortunately, I think fires (metaphorically) are always going to be a part of education. It's almost like asking, "Why is fire hot?" We teach young people how to govern themselves just as much as we teach curriculum. And I don't know about you, but I certainly caused a few fires myself when I was younger. It's a part of growing up that isn't avoided by most children. Luckily, I had some good people around me that knew how to throw water on my fires. They focused on how to diffuse the situation instead of focusing on why I did what I had done. They took the time to teach me instead of being frustrated by me. But what if they had thrown gas instead? The cost of escalating a bad situation with a student is high. It costs us our ability to connect with the student. It breaks trust. It hinders our ability to teach. While the behavior may 100% be the student's fault, but the price of throwing gas is too high. 

As Spring nears, outside warms up, and our patience thins, please take a second to consider how to make student management simple. Please search for ways to throw water on the small fires. Remember that we are here to teach and lead. And even when your last nerve is tested, consider that the price of gas is still probably too high to pay. 

Productive Paranoia

Doing teacher observations isn't my favorite part of my job. I don't mind talking to teachers about their lessons or even spending time in classrooms, but there's just something about the formality of the process that isn't engaging for me. Many of you, at some point, have had to remind me that I owe you an observation as we get near the deadline for the quarter. And as we are at the deadline for this quarter, I'm rushing to get my observations done. One of the classes I visited this week was Jennifer Edwards's English 3 course. After some silent reading time and breakfast was out of the way, the lesson started with a Ted Talk about fear. Karen Thompson Walker told the true story of a shipwreck that inspired the novel, Moby Dick. (You can listen here) The sailers were over 1,000 miles offshore and had to determine which way to get to safety. Their shortest route led them to Tahiti, however, they feared that the inhabitants there were cannibals. Paralyzed by fear, they took a much longer route, ran out of food and water, and even resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Fear made them act irrationally and ironically, they became what they feared most.

Fear builds a story in our minds of what we believe is the worst thing that can happen. And while fear can often help us make bad decisions, it's hard to turn off. But there's another option that Walker discussed, Productive Paranoia. Instead of being afraid and doing nothing, productive paranoia means working hard at being ready for what you fear most. Then if it happens, you are as ready as you can be. I had never heard this term before the classroom observation this week, but I don't think I can forget it. In many ways, this is exactly what we have been doing in schools for the past two years. When we reopened, I'll be the first to admit that I told a few people privately that I didn't think it would work. Our threshold for COVID cases was low and our fears that we would all be sick were high. In a lot of ways, we worked exceptionally hard not to let that happen. And it worked. Then we realized how much learning loss and absenteeism our students had. We were afraid that a generation of students would never catch up. We are working hard to engage them and are doing things we have never had to do. And it's starting to work. In my job, I talk with other principals about our fear of a massive teacher shortage. Our fears have made us think about how we appreciate teachers that do a great job and we have advocated for them to be adequately paid for it. They are starting to listen and new ideas about teacher compensation and licensure are getting a lot of attention. I sincerely hope that it works.

"Don't be afraid" is one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot, but I'm going to try to remove it from my vocabulary. It's ok to be afraid of the worst because sometimes, the worst does happen. But when we can use that fear to be productive in preventing the worst from happening, we become stronger than the fear. I'm not sure if Mrs. Edwards's students got all of that from the lesson that I observed, but I was happy that I showed up that day. I think I learned a lot.

Camouflage and Banned Books

On Thursday I had a conversation with Mrs. Whitson that made me realize how important it is to be explicit about the things that we teach kids. Not the things that you find in standards or pacing guides, but the things that (if we're being honest) really matter. I'm all for getting kids to learn curriculum, but the act of knowing it isn't what is really important. Hopefully, that curriculum unlocks an interest for students and they use that interest to go for a career. But if we are being honest, the vast majority of curriculum that we teach will never be used again in their professional career. What students really learn is how to work, manage tasks, communicate, think and evaluate. But if we do a good job, we teach them how to be good people along the way. 

There's a recent trend for parents to be pretty critical about the subject and language of the books that students read. Young adult novels often contain more adult language and themes of conflict and other topics that cause students to grapple with the dark parts of human nature. Some parents don't want their children exposed to that and as a result, school districts are updating policies on how to evaluate books that are appropriate. When Mrs. Whitson and I spoke about this, she hit me with a great question: Why is it wrong for students to understand a topic without it being something that they don't have to experience personally? Basically, what we are talking about is empathy. These books are having students empathize with a character or subject in a novel that is experiencing a difficult problem. And while we hope that the students don't encounter that problem personally, it's not a bad thing for them to consider the emotions and conflicts of a person that does. Understanding the novels means learning empathy. 

This week we joined a lot of other schools throughout our state to wear camouflage in memory and support of four students that passed away at East Carteret High School. I don't know of anyone on our staff that knew the students personally, so for us, the issue doesn't affect us directly. But what's the big deal about wearing camo? Does it really do anything for the victims families or friends? Unless we share pictures of us, they would likely never know. But the act teaches students, even if for just a few moments, to consider how someone else feels. To consider their loss. And to put someone else's feelings before their own. In a world that seems consumed with "me, me, me" I think we need a lot more of this. If you didn't take the time to explain the issue or reason why to students this week, there will certainly be other opportunities in the future. Look for chances to teach empathy. And while it may never be tested in your curriculum, I promise you'll produce better students every time. 

Requiem for a Fight

Unless you've been under a rock this week, you know that we had a large fight and two other "incidents" that followed at the basketball game on Tuesday night. When something like this happens, I always struggle with the perception that it places on our school, our staff, our students, our community, and on me. To sum it up, it's embarrassing. After the gym was mostly cleared of fans and the game resumed, I sat on the empty side of the gym at center court alone. What could I have done differently? What will I have to change as a result? What will I need to do tomorrow for the students and parents involved? All of these thoughts swirled in my head like a tight fishbowl. I take it very personally when something like that happens. I guess that's why I jump in to stop it in the first place. It's our image and it's my job to protect it. 

But if you think Tuesday night was tough, you wanted no part of my Wednesday. That's when I have to make decisions and judgments to clean up the mess. And you can absolutely believe that on my best day, I'll never come close to pleasing most of the people involved. The people directly involved claim very little and people with nothing to do with it bring you a lot of unsolicited answers. By 5:00 pm I had made my decisions, spoken with students and parents, relayed information to my boss, listened to the rebuttals, and decided to leave things as I had them. I like to reflect on big events like this and I had a hard time getting it out of my head that night. I remembered sitting there on that bleacher alone. I wasn't there more than a few minutes before I was joined by Mrs. Willis, then Coach Bryant, then several others. I thought back to the staff members that needed no directions to step up and hold our student section still until they knew that we could get them out safely. I thought about the several that looked for my daughter in the chaos and made sure that she was taken care of. I was never alone. 

And while events like this give fodder to those that choose to gossip, throw stones, or try their hand at being keyboard bullies, it doesn't define who we are. The number of kids doing great things outnumbers the bad on even our worst days. In the words of Sarah Gray (a Greene Central graduate and educator), "Wrong is wrong, and believe it or not 9 times out of 10 our students own their wrongdoing. But I, along with lots of others, see all the good they do, too, every single day. All the times they get it right. All the battles they face and overcome, all the time, that people know nothing about." 

It's always fun to celebrate the accomplishments and the good times, but it's the bad times that show everyone what you're made of. Thanks for being right by my side in this bad time, and thanks even more for defending what we truly are. 

Community

I tried to get the film crew that came to visit our school this week to switch dates. We had been out the day before due to the snow, we were on a 2-hour delay which threw off all of my original plans and I had several other great excuses why it needed to be moved. They were having none of it. When they walked in right on time on Tuesday, I asked them, "So what do you want to see?" I've done plenty of visits over the years that are specific to the visitors learning about a program or instructional style, but this was different. It was supposed to showcase me in the school and that seemed much more difficult. We talked about what kinds of shots they wanted and they even suggested staging a leadership team meeting or something like that. Perplexed, I suggested that we just start taking a walk around to visit some of the classes, and along the way, I would explain some of the more unique aspects of Greene Central. We visited several rooms and several different groups. Some knew that I might swing through and others had no idea. They stopped along the way to film artwork in the halls and even got a few unsolicited comments from kids that wanted 15 seconds of fame when they saw the camera. It was a great few hours and I probably couldn't have scripted it better if I had tried. As we walked back to my office to film some final interview questions, I got the comment that I loved. The lady that has organized every one of these videos for years said, "This is such a community school." Perfect. Now she gets it. 

Thanks to everyone that let us invade your classrooms on Tuesday. Thanks for letting us steal some of your students so that they could explain what they do. Thanks to those that prepped a lesson that I wasn't able to see when the schedule changed. But most importantly, thanks to all of you for being the community. You make me look much better than I really am.

Culture Wins

When Mrs. Willis tells me that something belongs on a t-shirt, I generally give it some thought. So let me set up the stage for you. As many of you know, I work with a group of principals from throughout the state that facilitates conversations and serve as mentors to other principals. We hold small group meetings about once a month and quarterly, we all get together (virtually) to discuss some larger issues and talk through some professional development. Think of it as one large PLC for principals. This week we had one of those large virtual meetings and I was leading a breakout room that was brainstorming root causes of why so many 9th graders were missing school unrelated to quarantines. When we finally got around to what we could start to do about it, I realized that I might not be as relatable to the rest of the group. 

We all had similar ideas about after-school programs where students could make up missed days and get tutorial help. It's not a particularly revolutionary idea, but more of a way to rectify some prior decisions that resulted in a loss of credits. At our school, we were quickly able to have counselors meet with every student that lost credit due to attendance and we had a plan for what steps they would need to go through to earn that credit back. Most of those students have already engaged in the process of doing what they need to do. Again, literally, anyone could have done this. It's not that groundbreaking. But when we talked about it in our group, the other principals quickly jumped to say that none of their teachers were willing to work after school to help with it and none of their bus drivers were willing to drive second routes to get kids home from it. I interrupted, "But you know, we do pay ours to be there." They told me that their staff thought that it wasn't worth their time and stress to take the money. They had tried to pay them and still no one was willing to do it. I shut up. My inner voice quickly told me that the solutions that I had were only exposing problems that I was not familiar with. 

So what's the difference? Was our plan so well thought out and communicated to students and their families that it just couldn't fail? Were we paying our staff double or maybe triple what others were willing to pay? Nope. The difference is culture and it has everything to do with all of you and very little to do with planning an afterschool program. Something intrinsically motivates our staff to help out when extra dollars aren't going to do it alone. Some people call it relationships, some call it a feeling of family and others call it a sense of importance. But really it's a culture. We want to see them succeed and we want to see them learn. This isn't new to us and doing something extra to get them there isn't either. Literally, everyone in education is tired right now and we all manage it in different ways. The teachers at those other schools are not bad teachers. Not at all. But something is different. They aren't us. And I have no words to tell you how much I appreciate you for being exactly who you are. 

So what does Mr. Willis think I should put on the t-shirt? Culture Wins When Programs Fail. Who knows. I'll keep working on it.

The Singing Teacher

As the father of two teenage daughters, I've learned that the fear of embarrassment is very real. They are at the age where you want to attract the right kind of attention to yourself, but not too much attention. There is a very fine line and I don't always know where it is. I laugh because I know it's a normal part of adolescence. Hopefully, they grow up and become more comfortable in who they are and less concerned about what others think of them. But if they happen to grow up to be very comfortable, then they might just have the ability to be a great teacher. Here's why...

I love to pop my head into a class when I hear good noise. So when I walked past Mrs. Galue's ESL classroom this week and heard noise from what is a very small group of students, I had to figure out what was going on. The group was learning English through music, specifically a Bruno Mars music video. I quickly saw that my presence changed the atmosphere, so I ducked out. But I listened from the hallway for the next 30 minutes. I got to hear a great concert from Mrs. G. She was singing her heart out with the video and the kids were eating it up. Now while I don't want to cast stones at anyone that is making a joyful noise, I can reassure you that I won't be asking Mrs. G to fill in as a chorus teacher anytime soon. But that's the point. She didn't pause at all to consider it to be uncool or even unflattering. Her singing created a teachable moment and her kids fed right in. 

The School Improvement Team has tasked me to acknowledge teachers that are doing a great job with instruction this semester and so I thought this was a fitting first step. Thanks to Mrs. G and all of the other teachers that are willing to be uncool or do whatever else it takes to get through to students. They might be laughing, but they are also learning. 

The Opposite Problem

I've taken a strong interest this year in how rural schools are managing instruction during the pandemic versus larger and more affluent schools and districts. I've mentioned in my blog posts before that I believe that in some ways we are better equipped to deal with the limitations and stressors that we are all experiencing right now. But where does that ability come from? It's not a financial advantage. It's certainly not centered around resources or close proximity to more community support. So what is it? This week I decided that it is a cultural phenomenon and the events halfway across the country told me why. 

This week, as schools across the nation, reopened from Christmas break we faced the increased challenge of a COVID surge. It's literally hitting us all right in the face. We left in December optimistic that things were getting better and that's just not the case. In Chicago, the teacher's union is deadlocked in a battle with the mayor's office over how to reopen schools. The COVID numbers there have prompted the teacher's union to call for a return to virtual learning and the mayor's office refused. As a result, teachers have refused to come into work this week. The schools have opened as places for emergency childcare, but teaching and learning are not present. As a principal, I would feel so helpless if I was there. You are torn between wanting to provide for students while empathizing with the safety of your staff. It's a lose-lose situation. 

But I don't have that problem. I have the opposite problem. Throughout his year, as I have had to send teachers home to quarantine, I get apologies. It is easy to see feelings of guilt and sometimes embarrassment at having to leave their classes to a substitute or for other teachers to cover. And while I admire their dedication, that's a problem. Unless you are a fool, none of us went out looking to be COVID positive. We didn't send our children or spouses out to contract the virus and while I'm certain that there are a few people somewhere in the world that have manipulated the quarentine rules to get some time off, I've never suspected it here. Unfortunately, no matter how hard we all try to avoid COVID impacting ourselves and our families, it is just going to find its way in sometimes. That's life right now and it's no one's fault. 

Teachers in rural schools are used to putting themselves last. We know how important we are to our students and our communities.  We know the roles that we play extend far beyond curriculum and instruction. Those feelings existed before the pandemic and were only increased as we have fought to reengage our kids. We know the importance of our work and that is why we feel guilty placing that responsibility on hold or in the hands of someone else, even temporarily. As we fight through the next few weeks of the latest COVID surge I want to combat this problem. No matter how good of a teacher you are, you are no good to students if you are sick or are distracted by the sickness of a family member. Just as each of you have stepped up to help in someone's absence, someone else will step up for you. I always had a phrase that I've asked our staff to keep in mind: "Take care of yourself, and take care of each other." The first part is just as important as the last.