Mean Girls

By Tuesday evening of this week I had had enough of mean girls. Two girl-involved fights (despite our best efforts to prevent them) and my own daughter's first-hand experience with a mean girl on her bus had me just about done with these girls and their problems. I guess growing up with only a brother, I somehow missed out on some valuable experience in how girls operate, so I started reading to find an answer on why girls can be so mean. Psychology says that while boys generally participate in physical aggressiveness, girls are much more likely to participate in relational aggression. This can include public humiliation, spreading rumors, exclusion of a person from a group or pitting one friend against another. It probably would not take much for all of us to attach a face to these characteristics from our own personal experiences. So why do they do it? While we understand the seemingly easy answer to why boys are aggressive (and yes we are more likely to give that a pass culturally), the motivation for girls can be a bit more complex. Psychologists have several explanations as to why girls begin to behave this way. The majority of reasons seem to tie back to one of two things: establishing themselves as an Alpha female or personal insecurity. Genetically, girls may be hardwired to be the Alpha Female so that they can have first-dibs on the best mate. (Strangely enough that explains why girls will fight over a boy.) Girls that feel insecure, fear not belonging to the group, and can manipulate others, to secure their own relationship standings.

So what does all of this have to do with school? Apparently a lot. Researchers also find that environments either lend themselves to being breeding grounds for "mean girl behavior" or not. Schools (and work places later on) can be places that fuel social competition and can unintentionally foster this type of behavior. Either by allowing it passively or refusing to attack it head-on, we can sometimes be our own worst enemies. We all (yes, guys too) have participated in mean girl behaviors and our own need to fit in may have led us to ignoring and allowing the behaviors of others at times. Schools have to take a different approach to getting girls to understand their own feelings and motivations. We have to take the time to teach positive leadership characteristics while also addressing self-worth and positive self-image. Simply expecting their to be a change by admonishing the negative behaviors will not fix the problem. Girls have to understand why and attach that understanding to themselves personally.

I have two daughters and there are so many young ladies in our school that I would be proud to call my daughter. I want to see them all become successful adults. In schools, girls generally out-perform boys academically, are much less likely to be suspended and generally demonstrate more mature behaviors. So why do we still have a male-dominated culture beyond school? "Doing what counts" also means educating our young women on how to lead effectively if we expect that to change. They need examples, but they also need to know how to get there. That has probably become our job.

Don't worry ladies....I'm calling out the boys next week.

"I Can't"

My dad had a lot of sayings that were so very often repeated when I was growing up. Far too many of those stuck in my head, and as a parent, I find myself repeating them to my children. One of those sayings he used very often involved the words "I can't." My dad hated those words. If literally anyone in our home was caught uttering that phrase, we already knew what was coming next: "'I can't' hasn't ever done a thing." As a kid, it didn't make much sense to me. It was one of those phrases that you had to think about a little, and I sure wasn't asking any questions in the heat of the moment. What I learned later on was that my dad appreciated effort. You had to try and then persist at something, even if it was difficult. You were not allowed to say 'I can't' and give up.

School is hard, and while we sometimes think that kids have it easy these days, we don't always understand everything that is placed on them. What we do know is that standards and expectations are higher today in American schools than they were for any of us. Increased accountability and competition add multiple layers of stress and pressure to teachers and students alike. With increased stressors, we also know that we see increases in negative behaviors in adolescents. Much like stress builds up for us if we don't have an outlet for it, it builds for them and they do not always know how to manage it. They need someone encouraging and coaching them along the way. It has to be routine. We simply cannot expect children to arrive at those conclusions on their own. Effort and persistence are learned behaviors. When I repeat that phrase to my own children, I can literally hear my dad's voice in my head saying the same. We have to become that voice in our classrooms for all students. When an assignment is difficult or it is easy to mentally check out on a test, they need to hear your words in her own heads. In order to do that by the end of the semester, you have to start now. Cramming for this test simply won't work. It will take some effort, but believe you CAN'T afford not to.

Perspective

The start of a new school year means new people are welcomed into the Greene Central family. New students arrive to replace the graduates, some transfer in from surrounding places and we always have a handful of new teachers to join our staff. I'm always curious about what impression our school culture gives off to new people. School culture reflects your values and beliefs. It's how you feel about the school and how you act accordingly. This week our new students and teachers are sub-consciously evaluating that. People naturally seek to fit in to their environment and they have to make observations about that environment before they can do that. I took a few minutes this week to ask some of our new staff members what they have noticed about our school. Some of their answers were no surprise and others made me chuckle.

One of the most notable things was the freedom that students and staff have within the school. Some students wear hats and others listened to music from their phones in the hallway. If a teacher needed to grab a bite to eat during planning, it wasn't forbidden. Another frequently heard comment was on the wealth of resources. Jeremy Shaw and Kelly Garcia got shout-outs, as did the overwhelming amount of technology. The one comment that I heard the most was how friendly and helpful everyone had been to our new people. Teachers and support staff had reached out to them, checked up on them and had offered assistance multiple times. I head the terms "family atmosphere" and "team" over and over again.

It feels good to belong to a school that projects that feeling. I can only hope that our new students feel the same welcoming atmosphere within the halls that they walk through daily. I want them to be just as overwhelmed with the helpful resources at their fingertips. I'm sure that they may not think that our school is perfect. Much like we question hats and earbuds, they probably question why they can stand on one hall in the morning and not another. My hope is that even with those slightly differing perspectives, we find a common ground of helpfulness in the place where we spend the bulk of our time throughout the year. Teachers should be happy about the place where they come to work every day. Students should be happy about the place that they come to learn every day. If those groups have a shared perspective, the rest becomes much easier.

The Power of Graduation

Last Monday, on my way home from the beach, I stopped by my grandfather's house to help him with some chores. He is 87 now and while he still thinks that he can do everything, he probably shouldn't. While I was there he mentioned that he recently had his high school reunion. I had always heard there were some strange circumstances surrounding him finishing school, so I took the opportunity to get the whole story. It goes like this...

My grandfather was a dropout. Not just that, but he finally dropped out of school at 16 because he was still in the 7th grade. As the oldest son of tenant farmers, he often missed school to work in the tobacco fields and this led to him being held back numerous times. At 16, he just stopped going altogether. That year, a man that went to his church, who was a principal at another school, told him that he would help him study over the summer and would help him get back into school the next fall. My grandfather agreed to this and worked every night at this man's house. The next year, the man told him to go back to school and join the class of kids that were his age. That fall he entered Lucama School in the 12th grade. A couple of weeks later, his school records caught the attention of his principal. My grandfather explained the situation and asked him to talk to the other principal that helped him. Two weeks later he was told he could stay. The principal even purchased him a class ring. My grandfather paid him back at the end of the year with tobacco money after he graduated. After high school he joined the Army and fought in the Korean War. He came home to Kinston and got a job at Dupont and worked there for the next 30 years.

Can you just imagine the chatter among the teaching staff at learning about the kid that was just pushed through from 7th to 12th grade! Weren't there any standards? Wasn't this just social promotion? I'm sure they thought that school must just be pushing kids through with no regard to what they actually learned. It's the same things we say today, but that was 70 years ago. To be honest, kids today graduate with the highest set of standards in American history in regards to graduation requirements. It doesn't always feel that way when we see a kid that doesn't do much to earn that walk on the stage at the end of the year.

Since high school, no one has ever asked me my class rank or my high school GPA. Once the moment of graduating happens, life is all about what you do next. It's what you do with that opportunity. You have a chance to build a life and it can be better or worse than the one you had before. The principal that helped my grandfather saw a young man struggling to help his family. He must have known how poor they were and how they moved from place to place, each smaller than the last, to make ends meet. He must have known about the social issues in their home that still plague homes in poverty today.

Without graduating, it is very likely that my grandfather would have continued as a tenant farmer; poor and uneducated. Graduating high school gave him a shot at a better life and while it may have been unethical to put him in the 12th grade, it made him better and society better. My mom, his daughter, went on to be the valedictorian of her high school class. My grandfather had adopted a respect for the power of education that did not exist in his family before him and he pushed that on his children. It was pushed on me as well.

In one week the chairs will be set out and the tassels will be hanging from caps as eager high school students prepare to leave us. Some worked very hard and some not very much at times. Some are gifted and some are not. Once that diploma hits their hands, they all become equal with an opportunity to be whatever they want to be. They have a chance. That is the power of graduation.

Behind the Scenes

Over the past few weeks I have been pretty busy. There have been several end of year ceremonies, performances and awards that I've attended. At each of these events I've been paying attention to something other than the main event. I've been watching the people behind the scenes.

Those that work behind the scenes work exceptionally hard to go unnoticed. If they do their work well, your focus stays on the performer(s), the action or the stage. All you notice is that everything ran smoothly for you to see what you were intended to see. They work hard to make someone else shine.  Between the students that run lights, sound and props at the Ramblers show, assistants that organized and ordered plaques, and staff that mail home notifications to family, there are many things that get done that we often overlook. I saw that especially this week as we prepared for the Senior Signing as SGA officers worked with school staff to organize the event and as our staff worked hard to be certain that every student walked away with something to represent their school. All we saw was a large group of happy students that proudly signed their name for everyone to see.

Teaching is the same way. We have been working hard to prepare students for an exam that will lead to credit for a course, and ultimately, graduation. If we do our work well, students show up, do well in an exam and everyone congratulates them on their achievement. The work behind the scenes is what got them ready for that day. So as we prepare for the end of the year, much like the end of a performance, I want to thank the crew. Thanks for all of the work behind the scenes that has given our students the opportunity to shine. Their achievement comes from your work and while you may not be in the spotlight, your work hasn't gone unnoticed.

You Get What You Need

The Rolling Stones formed in 1962 and emerged in America as a part of the British rock invasion that swept the country. Unlike all other bands of that era, they are still around today. While they may have started out with lyrics like, "I can't get no satisfaction," they grew up to learn that, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you'll get what you need." There is a lot of maturity in that change and I think we go through the same changes in schools. When we see problems that are difficult to fix, we feel very unsatisfied, but when we put our own effort into it and roll up our sleeves, we often can get what we need to make it work.

Yesterday our student leaders met with the Board of Education. I try to never script what student say at this meeting and let students have a real voice for what matters to them. They discussed wanting some changes to Overtime, increased prep for college applications and scholarships and some general upgrades to school facilities. We try to work through these big requests and find a place where we can get what we need. That same philosophy holds true for me as well. This week and next I will be working with the counselors and data managers to build our schedule for next year. Right now I (and you) want a lot of things, hopefully, with some effort, we will get what we need.

Things that we want changed take effort and while we may not always get what we want, when we put forth that strong effort, we do usually come out just fine. Thanks in advance for all of the last minute effort that so many of you are putting forth, I'm certain that our students will get what they need.

Passion

Three bricklayers are hard at work. A man passes by and asks, "What are you doing?" 
The first bricklayer says, "I am laying bricks."
The second says, "I am building a church."
And the third says, "I am building the house of God."

The first bricklayer has a job. The second has a career. The third has a calling. 

                                                                                                                                                                   

On Wednesday when Marlanna Evans spoke to our senior class about her career and what inspired her, she talked about passion. She explained that she has put 10,000 hours over 10 years into what she calls her job before she has started to receive recognition. That passion for who she is and what she wanted to do has paid off. She asked that our seniors take the same approach in choosing what their next step in life will be. I hope that they listened.

Teaching is something that you have to be passionate about to appreciate. Much like the story of the bricklayers, the emphasis of our job changes depending on how we see ourselves, not how others see us. I think that if we applied this parable to education, the first person would be teaching students, the second would be growing young minds and the third would be building tomorrow's citizens. The passion that one has for their job and their goal can greatly impact how they perform. It is usually easy to spot someone that is passionate about their job. These are the people that are always enjoying what they do. They put extra time and effort into it and they genuinely care about the outcome. I have no doubt that any school has all three "bricklayers" on their staff and honestly, that's ok. It takes time to determine what you are passionate about. Inspiration does not come overnight. I do encourage you to find what you are passionate about in this job and seek to grow that into a career and if you're lucky, a calling.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week and thanks to all of the "bricklayers" that are building tomorrow's citizens.