The Journal presents my weekly reflections on being a private, Catholic school principal during what promises to be a year filled with energy, excitement, challenges and possibilities…
Maybe we can find a place to feel good and we can treat people with kindness… Giving second chances, I don’t need all the answers. – Harry Styles
Over the course of the past few years, there has been a movement among the educational community (and the community writ large, I am certain) to select a word around which to center one’s year. I have engaged in this practice and found it grounding, especially as a year begins. As I have commented on before, here is something about beginnings – the starts of years and months and weeks – that really clicks with my internal operating system. If I start something well and begin it at the right time, it becomes a part of my makeup, mindset and motion.
My word for 2021 is KINDNESS. Rather than write about this word, I share the song Treat People with Kindness which expresses what I want for this year for me, for my family, for the school I serve and for our world. Maybe we can find a place to feel good and we can treat people with kindness… Giving second chances, I don’t need all the answers.
We have returned to school in-person in our hybrid mode this week and I am very, very hopeful that we can remain together for the rest of this academic year. Surely there will be challenges and quarantines and other events of which I cannot now conceive, but 2021 is off to a good start!