What I've Learned

People-watching is one of my favorite crowd activities and you can bet that in malls, restaurants, or at the beach, I'm watching the people around me. Maybe I'm nosey, or maybe I'm just intrigued by human interactions. Since the school shut down in March, I've been somewhat uniquely positioned to watch people and how they have reacted. The social studies teacher in me couldn't understand how we politicized a medical event and the school leader in me worried about students, families, and our staff members. But in my people-watching, I can tell you that I've learned a lot. Here are a few of my conclusions: 

I've learned how fear can paralyze people, and how legitimate that concern is for some and not for others. I've also learned that I had to find a way to address both groups.

I've learned that a crisis can bring out the best in some people and the worst in others.

I've learned that some things look worse on paper than they do in real life. People make things better sometimes.

I've learned that sometimes the best thing that I can do is to stay out of the way of people doing a good job.

I've learned that some people can make a bad situation work for them and others shut down.

I've learned that trying to be more patient is the leadership skill that I need to develop more.

I've learned that some people rise to challenges and that strong teams rise together. Their power is in the sum of their efforts and isn't necessarily limited by individuals. 

I've learned that I don't have to carry the load for everyone because there are good people working with me that help. Most without ever asking. 

I can't tell you how happy I am to be back working with you all. I know that some people think that we are crazy or reckless for trying this. Others wish that their children were in our district so that they could benefit from it. Seeing you all rise to the challenge this week has been amazing. It has worked better than I imagined it would. I've heard so many stories from friends across the state about how their district or staff just couldn't make it work. Thanks for being who you are. Thanks for being this crazy group that works as a team. I know that we are all different, but together, we are pretty awesome. I missed your awesomeness. 

Extra Credit

The job of assistant principal can sometimes be a pretty thankless one. In essence, your job is to make someone else look good at their job. In doing that, there isn't always a lot of praise or credit for the work that you do. Luckily, I had a mentor in my first years in administration that decided to change that. His thought was that while he had reached his career goal, he knew that I was just starting on mine. It was a powerful lesson for me, and one that I have tried to pay forward and not just to my assistant principals. There are so many people that make the wheels of progress move in education that don't have lofty titles. And while the system does not put these people with large salaries or anything like that for the things that they do that are above and beyond the call of duty, it's only human nature to feel proud when you're acknowledged for your efforts. 

As we start to wrap up the craziness of the year and set grades for student work, we have pretty clear guidelines from the state on what we must do. These guidelines have certainly come with harsh criticism and arguments that have merit on both sides. Our current situation in education has exposed great inequities in our society and how those inequities impact student learning. It has also exposed just how little some people knew of these inequities that have been present for a long time. Despite the criticisms, we have a path toward final grades and in that path, teachers can choose to improve a student's grade based on work done at home. For some kids this was easy, for some it was not. But in the spirit of giving credit where it is due, I want to ask that you adopt the philosophy of my mentor. Recognize and appreciate the efforts, even the small ones, of so many of our students that have made an attempt during this time.  Recognize that they have gone through the same frustrating feelings that we did about school. Give credit to the fact that their homes are not your classrooms. Understand that their efforts come from internal motivation, not a paycheck or in many cases, even a grade. So as you assign a final grade in the coming days, I challenge you to reach out one last time and give credit where it is due to the students that tried. It hasn't been easy for any of us recently, but their efforts probably deserve a little extra credit. 

Teacher Appreciation

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, and while I've been working all week on a light-hearted appreciation message to tell you all how important and valued you are right now, I was struggling to connect real meaning to it. My message changed this week as I, like many of you, learned about the sad case surrounding the death of Ahmaud Arbery. If you haven't learned about this story, you certainly owe it to yourself to learn more. While the events that occurred in Georgia on February 23rd speak strongly of the state of our society, I heard a story of education. It's a story that reminded me of myself and how different my life could have been as well.

I grew up like so many other white males in the South. I had two parents with decent jobs that put us in a place that in a rural area, you could call the middle class. We ate, paid our bills, and lived in a home, but also never had a lot of money for extras. Coming from a working-class family in the South, you are not often surrounded by college-educated people. Instead, you are surrounded by people that have worked hard but also often come with pre-conceived notions that were handed down in their homes and communities instead of through experiences outside their direct reach. Make no mistake about it, this is where bigotry lives.

I love my family and the extended community that raised me, however, if I'm being honest, racial slurs and prejudiced thoughts were commonly thrown around in my environment. Those thoughts and words were things that had passed down through generations. I would have been next and I can recall instances where that thinking had started to creep in. But luckily, there were people fighting that. My experience with African American teachers and teacher assistants in my schools left me conflicted. The words I heard outside of school did not match my admiration and love for these people. The more educated I became and the more experiences I had with people unlike myself, the more I learned about myself.

While we would like to believe that the incident in Georgia is something from generations before us, it isn't. And this is why we need to appreciate teachers now more than ever. Make no mistake about it, bigotry lives with ignorance. Our teachers (white, brown, and black) do damage every day to the systemic ignorance that allows these events to continue. I'm proud to say that I learned how to grow out of my past and my environment. And I learned that from teachers that cared about me. It was never in a book or in a curriculum. There was no multiple-choice test. No one got a bonus for teaching it well. But teachers taught me to be a better human.

Today, I don't have to deal with the words and ideas of my upbringing. It is something that has been lost in my family. My parents no longer condone it and my children do not even know about it. It's foreign enough now that when I heard about Ahmaud Arbery, it was a harsh reminder of reality for others. So as we end this year's Teacher Appreciation Week, on what would have been Arbery's 26th birthday, I want to say thank you to teachers for changing lives. Your love and compassion for children, coupled with the opportunities of education, will continue to work to erase ignorance in all forms. I just wish we had kids with us right now, because we still have some very important work to do.

Dear Michelle

The following is a promised response to Michelle Galloway from a conversation we had Wednesday afternoon. I decided to make it public because I realized that so many more of us needed to hear it. 

Dear Michelle,

Thanks for such a great conversation this week and for continuously trying so hard to keep your kids engaged right now. I know it's not easy, but I promise you, you're doing great. Our conversation ended on the topic of "small wins" and the idea that you could focus on the people that you are helping instead of the ones that you are not. As promised, I looked back on what I had read on the topic from graduate school. It was a very boring version. Instead, I found a few great articles and this TED Talk video. You should watch it. (It's not like we don't have time!)

I strongly feel that we are moved to ideas and people that need us most. Some people call that fate and others call it divine intervention. No matter the source, I think we are in that moment for a reason. I'm so glad that while cutting off the lights on Wednesday, I stopped to talk to you about this. Just reading on the topic made me see the faces of so many of our teachers that are going through the same thing that you are experiencing. Any classroom evaluation with only 11 engaged students would be a disaster. For that reason, only having 11 students show up to a virtual classroom meeting seems like a huge disappointment. But it's not. It's a small win.

No doubt, every teacher, student, and parent is in uncharted waters right now. We are all frustrated with trying to maintain what we think we should be doing and we feel disappointed as we fail to meet that expectation. But this is different. Instead, we should be celebrating every student, every assignment completed, and every piece of makeup work turned in. Without our efforts, there are no students, no assignments, and no makeup work. And that's far worse.

A quote from that TED Talk stuck with me. "Success is strange, in that it cultivates more success." This week you were successful in engaging some students. That success will lead to greater success for you as you learn new ways to be a teacher and to them as they learn the power in the content and in their own desire to learn. These small wins will add up, and when you look back at your career in helping young people, you will be proud of what you have amassed.

While this response is directed at you, just know that it could have just as easily been entitled, Dear Ashley, Dear Kristin, Dear David, Dear Katie, Dear Jason or so many others on our staff. None of us is alone in this and none of us that continues to try something each day is failing. Focus on your small wins. So many others are counting on them.

I Miss Prom

As a 15 year-old, high school freshman, I sat in an older friend's car trying to determine if I was supposed to wear a cummerbund with my vest or not. Both items had been in the package of my rental tux and my pride had gotten in the way of me asking an adult what I was supposed to do, so I put on both. I'm sure it looked as uncomfortable as I felt. I decided to ditch the cummerbund as she and I got out of her car for dinner. Years later, my mom would joke that she should have purchased me a tuxedo because it would have been less expensive than renting one (or more) every year to go to a prom or other formal dance. Fast forward twenty-some years, and I still enjoy the prom.

In conversations this week with friends, I mentioned that our prom should have been this past Thursday night. Someone joked with me saying, "I bet you don't miss that right now though!" As an adult, your outside view of a high school principal's job at the prom is to get everyone to behave. And while our students are always at the forefront of my mind that evening, it's not for the same reason that they thought. I do not worry about them dancing too close. Teenagers have always danced too close. I do not worry about those that choose to party that evening. I worry about them being safe. I do not worry about them getting pressured into bad situations. I worry if they will have the strength to say no to them. And I do not worry about prom in general. I enjoy the fact that these young people are quickly becoming adults and this evening serves as a "student-driver" trial at adulthood.

Our students are not rich. Some live much more comfortably than others, but a short drive outside of

our region quickly levels any financial advantage that they may have. But on the evening of prom, a poor kid can get to pretend that they are a wealthy adult. And for teenage boys and girls alike, something magical happens. For that night, the world has somehow stopped the problems of poverty and class as dance floors fill with the collective heartbeats of young people embracing an evening of looking and feeling their best. Perhaps that is why we have never had many problems on prom night at our school. The elation and appreciation of the moment overrides the opportunity for nefarious plans. While I love that about our kids, it still won't stop me from worrying that they all get home safely.

This year I miss prom. Not for the tuxedos or finger food. Not for the pictures or the dancing. I miss the prom for the experience. I miss the faces of girls excited at how pretty they are and boys trying to look like they are the coolest guy on Earth. Even if he's wearing a cummerbund under his vest. I really hope we get the chance to give them a prom somehow. We all deserve it.

White Rabbit

In the world of education, we often feel like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. We are always hustling to meet some deadline, rushing to a duty station at lunch or professional development on our planning periods, or sometimes even to the bathroom when our bodies don't always line up with school bells. Personally, I had hit the funk of March just before COVID-19 hit us. I was discouraged and I found it tough to try to maintain my usually cheerful disposition. Literally overnight, I watched you all go into action with our school community. My usual request for documenting parent contact became a joke of the past. Our problems of student conflict or lack of parent support were gone. But for many educators, the first two weeks of the COVID-19 school shutdown put us into a time panic. How will we finish our content now? Will they move the state test? How can I get kids to learn this stuff at home?! The hustle of the regular school day had stopped but the minds of educators everywhere went into White Rabbit mode. And on Monday, that changed.

With the Governor's announcement that our school year would be delayed until at least May 15th, our minds shifted. For once, educators now have too much time on their hands. We had nowhere to rush to or no quick deadlines to meet. And from where I sit, I saw something very interesting happen. When you give educators time, they don't shut their brains off. Instead, that brainpower turned into innovation. I have seen so many of you figure out solutions to helping students, use new tech tools together in VERY interesting ways, and take the time to be purposeful in what and how you plan to teach next year and beyond. When the White Rabbits of our school stopped running, it seems that they had a lot of good things to say and do.

If I haven't said it enough, I'm going to say it again now. Thank you. Thank you all for rushing when you need to, but also for keeping that mentality to do the very best job that you can do, despite whatever life throws your way. While the homeschool memes make light of the struggles of parents to do your job at home, the reality is that everyone in America woke up and realized that being a teacher is hard work. This is your time to shine. And not because of what they can't do at home, but because of what you keep trying to do while they are there. Good job White Rabbits.

Voting Behavior

My absolute favorite class in my undergraduate degree at ECU was called Voting Behavior. The class fell under one of my political science requirements and we spent the semester studying why people vote the way that they do and what influences a person's vote to change. The class mixed a bit of history, a bit of psychology and a lot of data. I was hooked from day one. So much of this class has influenced my natural interest in social studies and politics. The class taught me to look for my own natural biases and to challenge my thoughts and feelings about a candidate that had nothing to do with issues that affect us. Since then, I have never been one to support a candidate simply based on party affiliation.

My work with the Greene County Board of Elections allows me to try to use that unbiased viewpoint to get more people out to vote. That job can be pretty frustrating at times though. Despite our best efforts, turnout for this week's primary was only at 34% of registered voters. And while it may be easy to write that off as people simply not caring enough to vote, that's not always the case. You would be amazed at the phone calls and questions that we get about voting that come from completely false misconceptions. This week, several people asked if they voted in the primary would it keep them from being able to vote in November. And if you hear that once, it's funny, but when you hear it multiple times, it becomes concerning. It's all proof that education matters and that we always need to reinforce civic responsibility at every grade level.

While that issue of voting left me frustrated and confused, another vote made me quite happy. This week's nominations for Teacher of the Year warmed my heart. To keep outside people from voting and to keep people from voting twice, your email address is recorded in Google Docs. (Sorry, it's not a real secret ballot). Only I get to see who nominates whom. Despite past professional disagreements between teachers or the fact that some teachers work all the way across the building from one another, many of you nominated other teachers because you recognize professionalism and dedication to student learning. Your voting behavior in this event restores my faith in the system. Thanks so much for acknowledging the great work that you see in one another. I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing who will represent us this year.