What Did You Do Right?

I started doing my third quarter observations this week. The rubric doesn't exactly fit the way school works right now, so I have been learning how to give a little more latitude on some of the elements that I used to be very specific on. Usually, when an administrator gives you feedback on an observation, you're happy to hear what went well and anxious to see if there's something they did not like or a suggestion for improvement they may have. It's human nature to focus on the negative or to take it more to heart. I had that in my mind this week and stumbled across an article that suggests that focusing on our weaknesses might be detrimental to your future decisions as well. If you're one of those people that gets anxious at the bad news or the negative feedback, it can be even worse for you. 

We started this school year knowing what didn't work from virtual learning last Spring. We went on to center our professional development at fixing courses, improving communication, and trying to fix everything that was wrong. And if you are normal, at some point that work put you in a bad mood. I know I'm certainly guilty of that. With all of the focus on what's been wrong, I thought it might be time to start focusing on what is going well and where we have made progress. Some of you are already doing this and I hadn't really noticed until I stopped this week to focus on it myself. Here are a few successes that came to mind this week:

• The OCS classes are setting up an occupational lab in the school to teach work skills since they can't travel to work sites.
• Five beginning teachers decided to take on an extra professional development with Mrs. Garcia and she's so excited about working with them.
• Mrs. Head holds a voluntary live Zoom each morning to teach Math 1 to any teacher's students and they are attending without having to or receiving any other incentive. 
• Mr. Gnau got back to coaching men's soccer this week with a large majority of players eligible to play despite the academic challenges of the Fall semester.
• Mrs. Mattocks has been initiating our freshmen to the library as a part of her world history classes and it's great to see the space being used by students again.

There are many more, and certainly, some that I have left off that you've shared with me this week. And I think we need to start taking a little time to focus on what we did right. Look for some opportunities to share your successes throughout this semester, big or small. Your ideas and ability to overcome challenges can unlock inspiration in others, and focusing on your successes keeps you in a positive mindset to make better decisions in the future. 

A Fresh Start

In the Fall of 2000, I entered ECU as a Teaching Fellow. I was a first-generation college-goer that had plenty of great support from high school teachers that filled some voids that my parents were not able to fill when it came to the college process. Despite the support, like most teenagers with a new-found sense of freedom, I proceeded to have a really good time in that first semester of college. Hopefully, many of those exploits remain as skeletons in the closet, but it can easily be deduced that academics were not my first priority...or second...or third really. 

The director of ECU's Teaching Fellows program at my induction was Dr. Ronny VanSant. Dr. VanSant was a legend in the world of the Teaching Fellows program throughout the state. She had very strict expectations for how we dressed and behaved as representatives of the program and as recipients of the scholarship dollars. It didn't take me long to recognize that Dr. VanSant didn't seem to care much for my attitude or appearance sometimes. I associated mainly with a group of other students that seemed to not fit in as well. I can't say that I blame Dr. VanSant one bit for recognizing that I did not display what she wanted from me. She was proud of her program, and I wasn't always bringing good things her way. 

Several things happened after that first semester though. Many of my friends had failed courses and were on academic probation. It became pretty clear that they would lose their scholarships. And while I was not in their position, I knew that I wasn't doing what I should be doing either. My grades were not what they should have been and I knew I was dialing it in. I didn't exactly have a backup plan and joining the military with several of my friends that knew they were leaving didn't sound appealing to me at 19, so I decided to distance myself from some of my distractions and start trying. Now I do not proclaim that I made a quick turnaround. I still struggled to change throughout that Spring semester, but I had some help. 

Dr. VanSant had to leave her position due to illness and an interim director took her place. Mary Beth Corbin took over and fortunately, she didn't have the same first impression that I had given before. Mrs. Corbin never treated me like anything other than a great student. She was always welcoming, easy to talk to, and overly helpful. I went from being someone that dodged the Teaching Fellows office, to someone that stopped in to say hello or ask for help. I joined committees and volunteered. And while I doubt Mrs. Corbin even knew of the influence she had on me at the time, I'm eternally grateful to her for the fresh start that she gave me. 

This week we begin a new semester in a school year that has seen record student failures due to the pandemic and the nature of schooling. At the end of the first 9-week period, about 43% of courses were failing in our school. By the end of the semester, that fell to 28%. While that's great progress, it's still a staggering number. But it does show that many of these students recognized a need to change and at least started that transformation. As a student that has been in those shoes, I am telling you just how important it is for you to be the leader that gives them a fresh start. Embrace them despite their past. Encourage them when they struggle. Lift them when they fall. The opportunity you give them can be just as influential as it was for me. 

I'm Not Very Good At This

Since schools shut down in March, I have tried hard to figure out how to do my job. Managing staff, curriculum, facilities, medical needs, and all of the other parts that my job has encompassed has been very daunting at times. I find myself wanting answers when there are none, and I am being far more reactive than proactive. I'll admit that in many ways, I have felt like I was muddling through and hoping that something would happen. Now that we are at the end of a semester, I feel like we have learned a lot together, but I also feel like there are so many things about school that are simply not working as they should yet. So many students are not being successful and I have watched the stress work on my staff. Parents too often feel helpless and are allowing their children to disengage. To say it simply, I don't feel like I am very good at this right now. 

This isn't the first time I've felt this way as a principal. That feeling creeps in when I went through years with bad test performance, high rates of school discipline, high teacher turnover, or when parents felt like I was targeting their child or choosing to deny them of something. When those things happen, the only thing you can do is to step back and figure out what you can change to keep growing. You can't keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. 

To be honest, I don't know of a school principal that feels great right now. I don't really know of teachers or superintendents that feel that way either. Even if you're doing your best to engage kids, we all know that our usual standard of what we would call great teaching and learning can't be met. Instructionally, we all got tossed into something new and while some teachers found a unique skill set that they may not have been aware of, most educators felt stressed about what we realized we were not good at. But I'm here to tell you that we are uniquely positioned to grow right now. As we prepare to turn over a new semester in a few weeks, we have a chance to start over with a wealth of knowledge about what was and was not effective. The absolute worst thing we can do is to republish our Canvas courses as they are and let the chips fall where they may. Standard 5 in the NC Teacher Evaluation rubric measures how reflective we are and this is an opportunity to show accomplished and distinguished work. 

So what pieces did you learn about this semester that worked? No matter how small. Was there a more effective form of communication or motivation? Did you find a good balance in how many assignments kept kids engaged versus overwhelmed them? Were you able to leverage any connections that you made between yourself and your students and their families? Think of these things before you republish your Canvas courses in January. This year, we all became first-year teachers again. While we may not have been our best, we can grow and be better. All of us.

Leaders Need Food Too

If there's one upside for me during the pandemic, it's that I read more now. (Kelly Garcia would be so proud!) I'm starting a book called Leaders Eat Last. The book references the U.S. Marine Corps practice wherein the senior officers move to the back of the chow line to allow the junior Marines to eat first. It is the job of the leaders to make sure that the group is well taken care of before they take care of themselves. The theme emerges, "Good leaders sacrifice their own comfort - even their own survival - for the good of those in their care." Coming from a family with strong military ties, I can understand this concept and how it has shaped my own focus, particularly this school year. 

In some lighter reading this week, I also found an article on school leaders and self-care. The article talked about the pressures of schools right now that we all have been under and how you have to take time to recharge and take care of yourself or eventually, you lose the ability to effectively take care of others. At first, the two readings seemed opposite to me. One theory says to sacrifice yourself at all costs and the other says to take care of yourself to be more effective. So what's the answer? Well, I think you can have both. I think you NEED both.

When we think of leaders, we often think of people that are bigger than ourselves. We think of politicians, bosses, and policymakers. Did you think of yourself? If not, you should. The very first standard in your teacher evaluation is on Teacher Leadership. Students and their families look to you as leaders. You lead in your classroom. You lead colleagues that come to you for advice and support. You lead parents when they don't know how to get their child back on track. And in years like this one, those many calls to leadership have left many of us drained and hungry at the back of the chow line as we work diligently to feed others first. 

The USMC analogy says that leaders eat last, but it never said that leaders don't eat. There may be times when they eat less or eat what's left, but they still eat. Leaders need food too, both literally and metaphorically. We are almost halfway through a school year that many of us thought wouldn't last but a few weeks. In what's left, your leadership will continue to be called upon and needed in many different ways. Take time to take care of yourself, so that you can take care of others. 

Pray for Rain

The rain this week, coupled with our professional development to improve our online courses reminded me of a saying. I've heard slight variations with different origins, but the one I like is attributed to the author, Stephen King. "Pray for rain all you like, but dig a well as you do it." It seems like so much of this school year has been spent wishing and praying that life goes back to normal. So many of us have hit the point of fatigue with social distancing and the other rules surrounding the prevention of COVID-19. Similarly, we had all hit that same point with the commercials, text messages, and phone calls we received leading up to the election. As educators, we want desperately to have our kids in our classes again to engage them. We have been praying and wishing for things to change. 

But whether you realize it or not, you've also been digging your well. Think back to last Spring or even the start of this school year. How much better are we now than we were then? Think about how you've changed as an educator in such a short time. Our work this week to revise our courses based on a student or parent perspective is an excellent example. Before this year, we probably didn't do that a lot and we probably should have. Think about how much more responsive you are to students and parents. Or how much better of a communicator you've become in multiple formats. Do you find yourself thinking more about grading and what really matters instead of what you've always done? These adaptations that we have made won't disappear when we go back to a normal school year one day, just like the well doesn't go away when it rains. The work you've done remains there, ready and waiting to be put to use. I'm eager to see how our new skills will get put to use when we have all of our students sitting in front of us, but until then, I'll keep working on digging this well. 

Ben

This week has been filled with a lot of anxiety for sure. I don't consider myself as someone that often feels anxious, but between rising virus cases, the management of school cases and exposures, and the week-long (and growing) election, it's hard to avoid even a small amount of that feeling. No matter how you feel about those topics, you can easily dwell on your problems. Focusing on your problems can put you in a funk and I've certainly seen it bring some abnormal behaviors out in people that I don't consider to be abnormal. Your mindset impacts your behaviors and even the best of us get caught on the bad side of that from time to time. That's how I felt yesterday afternoon and I even caught myself being a little short-tempered with my children when I got home. Then I got a call from a parent that grounded me and hit a reset button in my head. 

For the past week, I've been monitoring the situation of a 9th-grade student, Ben,  that has had some medical issues. Headaches had led to doctors finding a brain tumor and he underwent surgery last weekend to remove it. While the surgery was successful, the prognosis afterward was not. The cancer causing the tumor is treatable, but it is not curable. His parents received notice that this would eventually take their child away from them. As his mother gave me the news, I couldn't imagine the strength it must have taken for her to just say the words. 

The conversation eventually shifted to school. Ben wanted to come back but he can't right now as he prepares for treatment to begin. She said that he was in great spirits and was optimistic that he would get to come back soon. While he knows that the doctors believe that the tumor will eventually return, he doesn't care to know the timeline that they have given him. All he wanted yesterday was a double cheeseburger. 

The first principal that I worked for as an administrator had a phrase that he used quite a bit when he talked with parents that were upset about their child's academic performance or some small trouble that they were in. He said, "Be grateful that your child is average. So many of them are not." I don't know why it takes things like this to snap us back to a reality of what actually matters sometimes, but this certainly did it for me. It's easy to focus on events and people that cause us problems from day to day, but all too often, there are people that would be happy to trade their problems for ours. And then you meet people like Ben, who in spite of problems that are considered terminal, choose to face them with a smile. I wish that I was as strong as him. I wish we all were.

Making the Right Choice

This week I read an article comparing how we chose fruit to purchase in a supermarket to how we should be leading schools in turbulent times. A few of the analogies were a bit of a stretch, but it certainly did get me thinking. How do you know which pieces to fruit to choose when you make a purchase? Do you squeeze it? Do you inspect it for bruises? Maybe you thump it and listen to the sound. Maybe you trust your nose to guide you. No matter what method(s) you use, you have to admit that it can still be a risk. Even the prettiest apple can have a rotten spot or taste tart instead of sweet. Choosing has a risk. 

That's also how Mrs. Garcia and I felt as we chose the teachers that would lead this week's professional development sessions. We knew what they were doing in their classrooms. That means that they passed the sight and smell test. What we didn't know, was if they could lead colleagues to talk about what problems they were having. That's not easy for everyone and it takes something inside of you that's different from teaching children. Doing it for the first time means there is a risk. 

I sat through every session yesterday because I wanted to see how well it worked. I cannot tell you all how proud I was to watch teachers lead and participate yesterday. You were outside of your departments and that means that you were out of some of the traditional comfort zones that you work in daily. Many of you put your successes and challenges out in the open for everyone to see and hear. You quickly jumped in to help others with an idea. And you were not led by professional development gurus or talking heads for programs that are not living in your shoes right now. You all did a great job and I am especially thankful for those of you that took the courage to lead yesterday. I think we chose the right ones and I'm looking forward to making more choices to put more of you in charge this year.