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.