Teach Boldly

Time Capsule reposts blogs from years past.
In the eighth year of Teach & Serve, there are more than a few from which to choose!

Monolith

Originally published in February 2021

The school I serve is set to return to full, in-person learning in a few weeks. We announced the decision to do so two weeks ago, giving the community significant lead time to get prepared, get acclimated and, in the case of our recently prioritized faculty and staff, get vaccinated. Our announcement was more than a month in advance of the shift in approach to schooling and II knew that this decision – much like every other decision since last spring – would be met with mixed reactions.

It absolutely was.

What struck me more in this case than in prior scenarios was the assumption by many that parts of our implementation plan were simply wrong and (here’s the kick) that everyone knew it.

We determined for various reasons that delaying our return was the right move. Nope, said many. This is absolutely the wrong move. We should be back in-person, full time, yesterday. Yep, said many. We need to wait to return until conditions improve as they are doing in Colorado. The later the better.  We decided that we would keep one  day a week as a Distance Learning Day. Yep, said many. That’s a terrific idea to reduce quarantines and give students and faculty and staff needed adjustment time to the weeks and months ahead. Nope, said many. This is not what we signed up for and you have to go five full days a week, now. We determined we would keep certain programs in place. Nope, said many. Prioritizing those programs takes away from critical class minutes. Yep, said many. We have to have those programs to be who we are.

What followed our announcement was a pre-planned series of meetings and a questionnaire to give people an opportunity to voice their concerns and questions. In those conversations and through these surveys, I heard or read a variation of the following phrase many times: everybody feels this way.

The ironclad idea that some seem to hold that their opinion is shared by everyone has been a stark reality this year. Call it group think, call it confirmation bias, call it an echo chamber, this phenomenon has been consistent and challenging.

There are no monolithic reactions. Just as there is no monolithic approach to education in this pandemic, there is no monolithic perspective about how we are doing that very thing. Over-and-over, this perspective has been driven home for me.The significant point here is that, as a school leader, I also cannot afford to be monolithic or assume that reaction to what I decide will be universally praised or universally derided. While I have known this for years, it has been in this year that this perspective has truly come home.

With the close of last school year, I completed my 30th campaign in education. Each of those years has been filled with joy and sorrow, challenges and successes, ups and downs and a ton of stories worth sharing. My (True) Life in Education Thus Far will detail 30 or so of those stories. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed living (most) of them!

The Facultones are a defining chapter in my 30 years journey in education. 

One of the facts I enjoy sharing about myself with new people is that I was in a cover band for almost 20 years, off and on. When I share this, I am very, very quick to accurately point out that I had a talent of blending into the background of a group of more talented people than I. My skill on guitar is nominal. At best. My vocal talents are similarly limited. But I find myself more than skilled at being a part of making a group sound good. 

I have played and sung in various liturgical music groups since I was in my early teens. I started singing and playing bass guitar (an instrument my first girlfriend taught me how to play). When I went to college, I decided I did not want to lug my amplifier with me and taught myself to play a six string. Later in life, I bought a 12-string and found it made me sound like I knew how to play better than I did.

Along the way, I fell in with various groups and collections of people who liked making music, too. This all started in my early years at Regis Jesuit when a couple would host teachers at their home for dinner and poetry circles. Hey, it was the mid-90s. Don’t judge. These poetry circles would, inevitably, turn into music circles and people would bring guitars and sing together.

After a few years of these events, someone suggested that a group of us should form a band and play dances and weddings and the like. 

I was excited by the idea having been in a cover band in high school, the two names of which were Noise on Tap and The Side Effects. I was eager to join.

About five of us, a keyboardist, two guitarists, a bass guitarist and a vocalist came together. We did not have a drummer (we would forever have issues keeping a drummer in the band), but we had an energy and we started to play together at people’s summer parties. For my part, I would plan my entire 10th anniversary party with my first wife around getting the band a gig.

We called ourselves “The Facultones.” I did not come up with the name, one of our guitarists – perhaps the nicest person in the world – did and he lasted in the band approximately one gig, it was just not his cup of tea.

In the years that followed, more than 20 people would migrate in and out of The Facultones, but a handful of us were fairly constant. We had incredibly talented people in the band, We had marginally talented people (like me) in that band. We all had a wonderful time in The Facultones.

We played dances, proms, Christmas parties, graduation parties, a wedding or two, summer parties, auctions and fund raisers – we played wherever anyone asked us to or where we invited ourselves to. We made a demo tape (that I cannot find; I wish I still had it!). We practiced in classrooms and homes and garages and at all times of the day and night.

At one point, I wrote a highly fictionalized account of the group called The Facultones. Too on the nose? 

I still have paper copies of set lists and electronic copies of music and chord sheets. I have notes and photos. And memories. 

I have a ton of memories. Love and Memories, one might say…

The Facultones was one of the most fun parts of my educational journey, perhaps the most fun. I miss that band to this day.

Time Capsule reposts blogs from years past.
In the eighth year of Teach & Serve, there are more than a few from which to choose!

Leadering: Achieving Balance and Blend

Originally published in March 2017

Over the course of the next few weeks, Teach & Serve will be discussing “leadering” activities.  In essence, these are the critical steps, as I see them, that individuals take as they become leaders. These are the universal gates through which they pass. These are their shared signposts they come across.

These are the things leaders do as they go about “leadering?”

1. Knowing Oneself
2. Identifying Weaknesses before Celebrating Strengths
3. Honing Communication Skills
4. Exercising Authority Appropriately
5. Achieving Balance and Blend
6. Humbling Oneself
7. Letting Go

Of the seven leadering activities I have identified that potential leaders can undertake in their development, achieving balance and blend may be the hardest, especially because something like finding balance takes time, and potential leaders, when they are younger, do not typically have a lot of time to spend on doing much but what they have to do.

I like the concept of balance – the idea that we must find balance in our work and home lives. It is obviously very important to mental and emotional health that balance is struck. If we are all about work, we have pressures weighing on us from home. If we are all about home, our work life suffers. This is not rocket science.

When I heard DeWitt Jones, photographer for National Geographic talk about balance and blend, I was really taken by his words. Balance is good, but it implies a 50/50 ratio. Blend, on the other hand, leaves room for liquidity, room for dynamism, room for flow.

In any case, a leadering activity that will truly assist potential leaders is finding the balance and blend they will need to have in their own leadership life. As they progress toward leadership positions, discovering when enough-is-enough in terms of work, taking time out for recreation and family and fun, setting appropriate boundaries for themselves and in consultation with their employers is leadering at its best. Learning from those experiences will make them stronger leaders when they assume those kinds of positions.

When I was conducting interviews for the high school at which I worked, I would ask candidates how they would say “no” to me when I asked them to do too much. It was a difficult question, I bet, and many likely thought it was a trick question. I do not, frankly, remember, in all the interviews I did, anyone knocking that question out of the park, but I asked it for a reason. I wanted candidates to know that it is okay to say “that’s too much, I have a life” beyond the job.

Leaders who exemplify balance and blend in their own lives illustrate to those they lead that having balance and blend is not only okay, it is desirable. It is critical.

Find the balance. Find the blend. Use your leadering to help you do so.