Ernie's Subs

Strangely enough, the thing I miss the most about working and living in Greenville had nothing to do with my job or where I lived. I miss my frequent access to a small, cinderblock building restaurant named Ernie's Subs. Coach Willis was nice enough to bring me an Ernie's pepper steak sub this week and I was in heaven! For those of you that are not familiar with Ernie's, you have probably driven by it hundreds of times and never noticed it. The outside is nothing to look at. The restrooms are outside and remind me a lot of the men's restrooms under our press box. The only furniture inside consists of a non-matching plastic patio table and chairs. While they make several different kids of subs, but almost everyone orders the peppersteak. It is the best sandwich I have ever had and I can literally taste it as I am writing this.

While Mrs. Willis and I were enjoying our sandwiches this week, she mentioned our school was a lot like Ernie's. (She's always looking for a metaphor.) The building is old and we are a rural, low-income school. From the outside, people may not expect much. But on the inside, there is so much to love. While we have our struggles like any other place, we also have so much to be proud of. This year's senior class has already amassed over $500,000 in scholarships and we have two semi-finalists for the Park Scholarship and a semi-finalist for the Morehead-Cain Scholarship. Simply put, good things can come from small, unassuming places. Each of us is a part of the recipe that makes our school and our students what they are. You are all ingredients to student success. Over the break, please take time to rest and recharge and come back ready to put those ingredients to work.

"Do you know how lucky you are?"

When I came to Greene Central five years ago, the school was in a huge transition. I had to quickly verse myself with all of the terms and requirements of a priority school, the School Improvement Grant and a programs like STEM, READ 180 and Carnegie Math. Some of you remember this transition very well and for others that have arrived since then, it may be all that you have ever known of the school. Within my first couple of years, it seemed like we were also showing off the school or some program within it to legislators, federal transition coaches or groups that were interested in doing something similar. At the time it felt like I couldn't get anything done for having to talk with this group or that group, but over the years, the frequency of those tours has started to slow down.

We recently had two of these visits to our school that helped remind me of a lot of things. Last Friday I had a visit from a group of principals that I help mentor from across the east. They have schools with similar backgrounds and they have similar problems of poverty in their districts. On Monday, we were visited by a representative from the Successful Practices Network, a group that studies STEM learning and technology in schools across the United States. These site visits may have done more to remind me about just how great our school is, than it did for our visitors. Much like you do in your classrooms, I also focus on the problem areas. Too often I see problems of student discipline, problems of teacher effectiveness, problems with facilities that need repair or even more long term problems of programs or budget. With all that focus on problems, I think I had lost sight of all of the solutions that were in front of me. It wasn't until one of the principals from last Friday's visit asked our student leaders, "Do you know how lucky you are?" that I paused to ask myself the very same question.

It sounds simple, but do take time to step back and focus on the positives and not just the problems. They are all around us. They walk our halls as kids that we connected with. They come back to visit as ones that are success stories. They teach down the hall as new teachers that learned from you. They are there as parents that appreciate what we have done. While we will always have new problems to solve, it's also important to take time to look around and count our blessings to appreciate where we have come.

Adversity

This fall has been a tough time for several students and teachers. Several have lost family members or have been there for devastating medical news about a family member. Several students have received some tough news about their own health as well. Undoubtedly it is hard to focus on teaching and learning when things like this fill your attention and drive your emotions. In the face of this adversity I have seen students and staff members show true compassion for one another. I have seen students worry about grades and attendance because despite their troubles, they recognize that they still have goals to meet for their future. I have seen teachers show up and teach when every logical reason says that they could have taken another day or two off.

Even though no one would ever wish this type of adversity on themselves or anyone else for that matter, there is some truth to the idea that adversity builds strong character. Persisting through adverse times and troubling situations has statistically shown to build strong leaders and character traits of compassion and empathy. One of the most common characteristics among United States Presidents is that an unusually large number of them lost a parent as a young child. We think of this type of adversity leading to troubled teenagers that would be at risk for failure. But when we see people that face adversity and work to succeed in site of it, we often see tremendous results.

Thank you to all of you that help our students face their own forms of adversity, large and small. And thank you for choosing to stand and deliver for your students, when bad things come your way as well. Tremendous results are waiting.

Investment

Each month the administrators get together before the next scheduled staff meeting and talk about the agenda. One of the first things that we discuss is always the Whatever It Takes Award. We look for someone that stands out in what they do for a student or the school at large. I am not looking forward to having to make a decision for this month's staff meeting and there's a really good reason for that. Recently I have seen so many of our staff members doing very special things for students. These things have nothing to do with academics, content and language objectives, curriculum maps or anything like that. These are investments in our students as people and they often address issues that pull at our hearts.

In the past couple weeks I have seen some pretty dramatic examples of that. Between teachers that have purchased shoes for a student, another that purchased a belt for a troubled student that had done better and a teacher that served as a father in a daddy-daughter tennis match, I've seen some amazing things out of our staff. I'm certain that there are many more examples that many of you have kept to yourself. These acts of investing in children serve the exact same as money invested in an account. It doesn't just sit there; it grows.  Children that are shown kindness and understanding in times of need are much more likely to become adults that do the same for others. These acts of compassion grow upon one another.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want you all to know that I am thankful to work with a staff that sees children as more than a name on a roster. They know more about them than a predicted achievement level. They care about them more than just 90 minutes a day.

Water Your Seeds

I was talking with a Senior this week about grades and attendance. It's a fairly regular conversation that I have to have about this time of the year. We talk about finishing strong, maintaining focus so that colleges will accept you and getting back on the right track before it causes a real problem. Most of these conversations hinge on that student's specific goals beyond high school and trying to leverage that goal toward doing what they should do in class. I asked this particular student a rather simple question, "How are you going to get back on track in class?" She just looked at me. I asked it again. She replied, "Well I just hope that I can go in there and do it." That's not good enough.

There is an old proverb that states, "I pray for rain, but I cannot neglect to water my seeds." Sometimes when students (or any of us really) face a tough task, we go into it with optimism that if we want things to work out, then it will all be alright. Some people call it hope while others know it as faith. We want to believe that things will turn out well in the end. While I am a strong proponent of positive thinking, I also believe that hope or faith without action is usually fruitless. Anything worth hoping for is also worth working for and that means that you need a plan.

We are at the halfway point of the fall semester and that means that no matter where your students are, now is the time to push for growth. It's time to get serious and that means both us and them have to get our heads in the game. Whether your plan to growth them means a new instructional game plan or a different look at management or motivation, it's time to water our seeds. Even if you feel like things have been going great in your classroom and your "crops" have been getting plenty of "rain," know that we can still fertilize them as well. Be specific about a game plan and let's finish strong!

What We Teach

While the start of almost all school years will include some settling out of new faces, new needs and new attitudes, I'll easily admit that this year has been exceptional. It's been tough to get kids to effectively communicate in times of conflict. We have seen it the most amongst our freshman class. While teachers and students see the argument or fight in the hallway, those of us in the front office usually get to hear the rest of the story surrounding the event. In many of these cases, the students involved are friends. They are upset over something or someone and when they attempt to communicate that, it fails miserably.

In the wake of this, I was very quick to utter the statement, "Kids today just can't communicate!" On the surface it is easy to say that. Each new generation carries the blame and ridicule of an older generation that disagrees with how we have changed culturally. The more I thought about it though, I'm not certain it's all their fault. All children learn through observation. Their communication skills (or a lack thereof) are learned behaviors, not ones that are innate to a group of people, born at a particular time. So where are our kids learning this? Between families that increasingly split due to conflict, mass media that popularizes all kinds of dysfunctional behavior and political leaders that name call each other via social media, is it any wonder why our children behave the way that they do? So with that being said, what on earth do we do about it? I think that all we can do is educate. We teach kids, and if the truth was told, we teach them a lot more than what we see in our curriculum.  But just like the content knowledge that we want them to know, we have to be explicit about how to behave as well. We all get frustrated and upset at times, and that's perfectly normal. What we have to teach kids (and sometimes remind ourselves) is how to handle life when that happens. Remember that good or bad, we are all an example for our kids. We are the ones that children look to for knowledge and guidance. What we teach, often has nothing to do with what we are paid for.

Over Communicate

I genuinely think that the majority of problems in any organization occur from a failure to communicate. In schools, I think that is even more true. Wether we acknowledge it or not, we are in a relationship with one another. Like any relationship, both parties need to express what they think and how they feel. Also like most relationships, we often assume that the other party understands what we think and feel. We've all been guilty of that at one point or another and the moment we realize it, we usually understand how things could have happened differently. It's often easy to acknowledge that feeling with a spouse, family member or a child, but we are not as quick to see it in our professional lives. I recently read an article about leadership and it highlighted failing to over-communicate as a key problem in leadership. Basically, if you want to lead a group of people, you have to be clear about what you want, and follow up along the way quite often about it. This week I thought I would start with a simple exercise in over-communicating.

I appreciate you. I genuinely do. I've seen so many of you do extra things for each other and for your students, and all of that makes my job so much easier. Homecoming week is always a great time to see school staff work with students on creative projects. That collaboration builds relationships and fosters growth for both parties. Thanks for taking your time to make this week's events happen and for doing the extra little things that show kids that you care. It may be just a silly outfit, participating in the pep rally or organizing the lineup for the homecoming court, but to kids it matters. So thank you. I hope that you know that I appreciate you, but this week, I want to be sure that I've said it.