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!

Expectations Change. Get Used to It.

Originally published in November 2020

Perhaps because the majority of us who are educators remain locked away from our students, teaching from our homes and considering what next year brings, the topic of change is more relevant than ever because, even though we are not in our buildings, we are about to turn the calendar page to May and, for most of us, May means the end of the year. For about a fourth of our high school students, though the final rituals this year will look different, May means they end of their time with us. 

And though the conclusion of the Class of 2020’s high school careers have been altered, we hope their time with us has been time well spent. And we hope that our coming graduates are different now than they were when they joined us. We hope they have changed. 

We know that things change, that people change. As educators and institutional leaders, are we not all about change?

Students come to us as one thing, they leave another, hopefully positively influenced by their time with us. We anticipate and expect them to change. If they were not changing, something is horribly wrong with how we have structured our environment. They are changed. They must be.

We anticipate changes in curriculum and the tools we use to teach (if we do not anticipate changes here, we should get out of the game). If we did not anticipate changes before, surely in light of what we have faced over the last months, we do now. We know that curriculum and the tools used to deliver it will change. We (hopefully!) embrace this idea, get ahead of this idea and are inspired by this idea.

But when expectations of us change, how do we react? When we are confronted with the reality that those for whom we are responsible seem to have new expectations of what we will do, how we will teach, the manner in which we will lead, how do we respond? Do we face such changes with the same enthusiasm we apply to the ones mentioned earlier or do we have a reaction which suggests, “hey, you knew this about me – you knew this is who I am and how I do things”?

Look, expectations of teachers have changed radically in the past weeks. But expectations of teachers have always changed and will continue to do so. Expectations of administrators have, likewise, changed and will continue to do so. If you believe who you are when you started this work is who you will be ten, fifteen, twenty years into it or ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, I seriously encourage you to think again.

If we are not changing, looking for new ways to do things, for new ways to interact, to teach, to lead, then we are not suited for work in schools.

We are surrounded by change. Why should we be exempt?

Expectations of us change. Even at the end of the year.

Get used to it.

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 first years of Regis Jesuit High School Girls Division were incredible. The days were certainly long and there was hard work to be done, but the energy of doing something new – of creating something – was palpable for our entire staff.

The initial year when we were off campus and flying all but solo was special. I can still almost remember everyone’s classroom – how it was set up, where it was in the building – and I can name every teacher and staff member who was with us that first year. The school would grow exponentially (something that no one was sure of when we opened) over the next five years in terms of enrollment and of staff to serve the young women. While I had a hand in almost all the hires over those years and in more than a few admissions decisions and while I think we did great things, hired great people, brought in great students in the years to follow, those first years were remarkable.

The individuals on that first staff wore multiple hats. The principal taught Spanish classes. The Assistant Principal taught math and oversaw the counseling program. Each teacher taught more than they strictly should have and each moderated a club or coached a sport. All of our staff members took on multiple responsibilities far beyond what their job descriptions required of them.

For my part, I was the Dean of Students, I was one half of the English Department, I was the yearbook co-moderator, I was the public address system.

We did not have a PA or a bell system that first year. In order to share announcements and morning prayer, we brought the entire student body together before class and I read announcements and helped facilitate prayer. Because we had no bells, our teachers had to dismiss their students promptly and on schedule. They did. 

I loved moderating the first yearbook for Regis Jesuit Girls Division with a staff of freshmen and sophomores who would put the first yearbooks together over the next few years. 

I always wanted to remain in the classroom even when my ambitions and my career path led me into administrative roles. That the school needed me to teach (and I taught members of that first class of sophomores all three years they were with us) was a happy coincidence. I taught every year I was an administrator at Regis Jesuit. When I moved on to Mullen, I would have to fight to do so, but that is a story for another post.

I was also Dean of Students and tune in next week for more on that role.

Suffice it to say we all were serving the school in many different capacities and serving, I think, very well. Though the work was taxing and our environment was challenging (the aforementioned no PA, many of the restrooms were elementary student sized – tiny toilets and low sinks – the outer wall of the “gym” was about 18 inches from the out of bounds of the basketball court, we had to lay carpet tiles on the cafeteria floor every Friday, and so on) the camaraderie was unlike anything I have ever experienced. 

How many hats is too many hats? I am still, almost 20 years later, trying to answer that particular question. I have not found that limit.

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!

Sometime during the eighth year of my time at Regis Jesuit, talk began circulating about a change in the life of the school. Regis had been an all boys institution for over 100 years and, though I knew there had been periodic conversations about adding girls to the student body, none of them seemed particularly real nor did any seem as though they would take hold. 

That changed rapidly in 2002. 

As I understood the dialogue at the time (a dialogue that had, unbeknownst to most of the rank-and-file at the school, been going on since 1998), a group of families with daughters approached the school noting that there were hundreds of fewer “seats” in Catholic schools in the Denver Archdiocese for girls. There was an all girls school in the Archdiocese, but it was much smaller than Regis Jesuit. The fact was that more boys were able to attend Catholic high schools than girls. This was a persuasive argument, it seems, to the board of trustees at Regis Jesuit at the time, and they voted, not to go co-ed, but to open a separate division of Regis Jesuit that would serve young women while the original flavor Regis Jesuit could continue to serve young men.

I have written in one paragraph about the brave and bold decision this board made and I know that it was a much more prayerful, complex and amazing decision than my description of it makes it appear. This was an incredible choice and announcement, rocking the foundation of the school, of Catholic education in the Archdiocese and of the lives of thousands of young people. 

It was astounding.

I was personally very excited. I had a daughter myself and was often struck by the fact that she would not be able to attend the school I was pouring my heart and soul into. I was struck by the inequity of that fact. I was struck by what I perceived as the injustice of the situation.

I immediately wanted to join this new staff.

The so-called (and, in retrospect – in my opinion – poorly named) Girls Division would open with a 9th grade class of about 125-150 students and a 10th grade class of transfer students who, by agreement with the Archdiocese of Denver, could not come from Catholic schools. I believe we had over 130 9th graders the first year and 44 sophomores. 

I write “we” because I joined that staff as the first Dean of Students of Regis Jesuit High School Girls Division. More on that in a future post. 

The first year at the Girls Division was the second most exciting year of my career (the first being my first year as principal of Mullen High School). Our staff numbered just over 20. We were housed off campus as the new building the boys at Regis Jesuit would move into was a year from completion. We were basing everything we were doing on the 100 year tradition of Regis Jesuit but also making policy and decisions as we went along. We were led by a first time principal, a very new assistant principal and, me, a first time dean. None of us had worked in an all girls setting prior to this year. 

It was so energizing and, for me in my 11th year of teaching, it was just what the doctor ordered: an ability to serve the school I loved in a brand new capacity.

And the adventure was just beginning… 

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

Preaching What I Preach, My Friends

Originally published in October 2016

We tend to be overly nostalgic about our college years. I had a great time in college, to be sure, but, again, the best years of my life were not concluded when I turned 22. Likewise, we wax poetic about our early years in our first jobs. No, they weren’t really as great as we remember them. I never believed the high school years were the best years of my students’ lives. I cringe when I hear that sentiment voiced at orientations or graduations. I mean the high school years are, literally, spent between the ages of 14 and 18. Am I supposed to believe that my best years were over almost 30 years ago? That would be a depressing thought, indeed.

However, there is something very special about these periods of our lives and about the people with whom we share them, and it’s a platitude I’ve shared with many a student in many a class at many an occasion over the years that I’ve only recently come to know as true.

I’ve been thrice blessed over the course of the last 30 days to reconnect with old friends. I literally almost typed “old, old friends,” but I feared that might imply that the people I am talking about are elderly. They are not. They are my contemporaries which means, by any definition by which I view myself, that they are not old at all!

Interesting to me is that all three of these companions came to me through my educational life. These relationships all spun out of my connection to schools and schooling and the bonds forged over those experiences seem to be stronger than I had previously imagined.

I was treated to an amazing day in Los Angeles by the first of these old friends. It was such an incredible experience of generosity on his part that the whole thing is frankly hard to explain. Suffice it to say that he allowed me to see and touch my own personal Disneyland. Incredible. We reconnected over Facebook a few years ago and hadn’t seen each other for over 25 years before he hosted me (and The Magister) at his home and place of work for 24 indelible hours.

He and I had known each other in high school. I was Schroeder to his Charlie Brown in a production of You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown when I was a junior and he was a senior. We were on the yearbook staff together. We spent many a night at rehearsals or working on deadlines or at cast parties talking, dreaming about girls, our futures, our place in the world – you know, like high school kids do.

The second old friend was stranded in Colorado when a snowstorm shuttered airports all over his home state of North Carolina. He’d been in Denver for a fact-finding trip, studying exemplary schools on three precise days that I was actually away from my home city! We weren’t going to get to see one another but, as fate would have it, he was stuck in Colorado and I was able to return home before he left. The breakfast we shared on an early Saturday morning was the best meal I’d had in a long, long time.

He had been the Best Man in my first wedding, but we had met years earlier in college. We were selected to be Resident Assistants the same year. We were both English majors. We were both into music, though he was always (and remains) far more talented than I. I was Diamond to his Jade and when we lobbied for and were assigned to be RAs of the same dorm, we wreaked havoc as the greatest tandem ever… at least that’s what we thought.

Traveling to Xavier University on a work trip, I connected with my third old friend, primarily because the organization for which I work had asked him to be the keynote speaker at a major event we hold every third summer. Walking across the Xavier campus on a crisp January morning I could feel my excitement building to see him. Coming into his office – seeing the manner in which it was decorated and feeling the vibe my friend had created, I felt immediately welcomed and sank into comfortable repartee.

He and I were hired the same year at Regis Jesuit High School and he was part-and-parcel to my experience of my early years in education. We spent our work hours together. We spent our off hours together. We had a tight group of friends that shared life, day-in-and-day-out. I was Downbound to his Train, rhythm guitar to his lead piano, melody to his harmony.

Three friends in 30 days. I got to reconnect with three friends in 30 days. Each of the encounters were, in their own way, unexpected. It was something of a lark to see my first friend in Los Angeles. It was incredible luck to see my second friend at home. It was shocking when my boss told me “I have a great idea for a speaker for us…” and suggested my third friend. I got to see three old friends in 30 days. Three friends who had incredible impacts on my life when I was younger.  Three friends who came to me through my schooling as a high schooler, a college student and as a teacher.

Seeing them now, as a man in my later 40s, made me realize something I’ve often said to students that I don’t know that I’d ever really experienced and it’s a truth I don’t think it’s just true for me. The connections we make in schools matter. They count. They influence us in how we think, what we believe and who we are.

It’s not that I didn’t know that. It’s not that I needed to learn that lesson. I just don’t know that I had ever experienced it like I did last month.

My high school friend is living his life in the precise manner he wants to. I so admired him in high school because he always seemed so at home in his own skin and comfortable with himself is clearly what he is. Comfortable, warm, generous. If I have any of those qualities, I learned them from him when we were high schoolers.

My college friend is a deeply thoughtful, talented educator. He is driven to make the world around him a better place for his students and his teachers. A devoted family man with a resonant and contagious laugh, he inspired me in college and inspires me now. I wanted to be more like him when we were in college and I want to be more like him now.

My teacher friend is a true contemplative in action, just like he was when we signed our teaching contracts together. Even tempered and spiritual, I was forever in awe of his manner and his grace. His faith guided his life when we were young and still does. I often wondered how to model myself on his example and I still do.

Being in the presence of each of these men was something of a time warp. The intervening years from the last time we’d seen one another to the day we reconnected vanished. With each of them, I felt I was picking up where I’d left off, stepping into a well read and much loved chapter of my favorite novel and reading it all over again.

The friends we make in our youth have great influence on us. They help us conceptualize the world – help us make sense when nothing makes sense. Their example imprints on us. Their approval moves us. Their friendship makes us. Those words we offer as educational professionals about how our school friends will be at our weddings, the births of our children, our funerals, these are true words. I’ve preached them many times and preach them here, again, today.

The connections we make in school matter. There is wonder in them. There is grace.

And I was lucky enough to revisit three such connections in the last month to drive that point 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!

Disclaimer as I begin this post: I came to understand and appreciate the administrator I discuss here in so many ways over the course of the 20 years we worked together. A person of commitment and passion, this administrator remains one of the hardest working colleagues I have ever journeyed alongside. This administrator’s desire to improve Regis Jesuit High School was, in my opinion, unmatched during my years there. While I often did not agree with this administrator’s perspective or goals and quite often found myself at odds with this administrator’s leadership tactics and philosophies, I can truly say, without snark or irony, that I learned as much from this administrator about being dedicated and being a leader as I did from anyone else I have encountered in my career. 

During the first ten years of my Regis Jesuit tenure, I was a classroom teacher who took on other roles, but I was not an administrator. As a classroom teacher, I both dreaded being observed by admin and wanted to be observed by admin. In my years at Bishop McNamara, I had grown used to being observed and receiving feedback. I still conduct my observations in very much the same way they were administered to me at McNamara because I liked and continue to respect the practice.

At Regis Jesuit, I was not observed my first year. At all. 

But I did have an administrator, the administrator mentioned in the disclaimer, drop by my classroom. Once.

On the last day of school my first year at Regis, the community celebrated something of a field day. It was called Raiderfest and it took place after a shortened schedule for all students. The end of each day at the school was signaled by announcements before the final bell was rung and this day was no different. Students would be dismissed to Raiderfest after announcements.

I have noted earlier this year in a post that I was a jerk as a young teacher, a teacher with a ton of ego and a lot to prove, and I made it a point that my students DID NOT TALK during afternoon announcements. I threatened and admonished them if they did. I had a whole series of repercussions worked out if they deigned to speak. My recollection is the boys in my class were typically very quiet during announcements.

On that last day of the year, my first year, the administrator mentioned above determined that everyone would be absolutely silent during afternoon announcements before Raiderfest would be allowed to commence. On reflection, I am sure that there was something important that the students needed to hear that day. This was long before email and announcements were a means – almost the only one – to communicate with the student body. I am certain that something important was in the offing that afternoon.

But it was the last day and the classrooms around me were pretty pumped up, pretty loud and pretty impatient. I had kept the boys in my classroom quiet for what seemed to be an eternity and, finally, I relented and allowed them to speak a bit. In that moment, a different administrator came over the PA saying that announcements would not begin until everyone was quiet.

At that point, I said – and I do remember this as clear as if it happened yesterday – “Gentlemen, let’s be quiet. Maybe we are part of the problem.” At that precise second, the administrator who is the subject of this post walked into my classroom, pointed at me and said “you are.” 

The boys’ eyes went wide as they quieted down, my temper rose as the administrator raced down the hall to the next room and my anger simmered.

Once announcements were concluded and my students were deposited at Raiderfest, I stormed – the correct word – the administrator’s office. 

In line before me to speak with him with what I was sure was a very similar issue, was a teacher I very much respected who was my mentor. We exchanged glances before he went into the administrator’s office. They spoke in raised tones – my mentor rarely raised his voice – for a moment and then my mentor departed and I was summoned.

I do not remember the preamble between me and the administrator. 

I do remember saying “it is really unfortunate that the first and only time you were in my classroom this year was to show me up in front of my students.” 

And I remember leaving the office on that comment.

Mic. Dropped.

The administrator and I never again spoke of that moment. 

While I look back and think I could have handled that afternoon more professionally, I know that it convinced me of something I have carried with me for over 20 years: good administrators need to be present to and in relationship with the teachers and staff and, while I struggle to do a good job of this each-and-every-year and know that I have a long way to go to be who I want to be in this aspect of my leadership, that day established it as a priority.

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!

During my early years at Regis Jesuit High School, I served as a co-moderator for Student Council. I believe I held the position for my first 6 years at the school, 2 years apiece with individual colleagues. My first co-moderator is a professor at a very prestigious university. My second is a professional photographer. My third is a high school administrator. Counting me, 50% of us went on to high school administration. From this fact, I draw 2 conclusions: first, being a student council moderator is a pretty good stepping stone to becoming a high school administrator and, second, the other half of us made the right choice with our lives.

The student council I moderated was, primarily, a programming group that put together dances and blood drives and the like. We staged Homecoming Week and Mission Week and tried to make sure that the students were having fun. 

Being a student council moderator in an all boys context was very interesting at least from the perspective of gender. I found it a challenge to motivate young men towards creativity in planning homecoming themes or in designing decorations or t-shirts. This is not to say that all young men were not capable of these activities and that all young women have more of a predisposition to them, it is to say that, in my experience, this observation held true.

Regardless, I can say that it was not always easy to get the students of student council energized about our activities.

Except for pep rallies. Man, did the boys love pep rallies. They loved getting their classmates riled up, they loved introducing our sports teams which, somehow, always involved bringing the spotlights from the theater into the gym to highlight the sports stars. They loved the cheering and the frenzy.

They loved the damn pep rallies.

I often thought the amount of love they had for pep rallies was in direct response to my revilement of them.

I hated the damn pep rallies.

My disdain for them may have been solidified by one of the worst decisions I ever made as student council moderator. 

There are moments I look back on over thirty years which inspire but one thought: what the hell were you thinking? 

The plan went like this: bring the boys (all 750 of them)  into the gym. Turn off all the lights. Shine the spotlight on one of the student council members. Announce that he was about to throw Big Macs into the stands. Switch the lights back on. Let the throwing commence and the chaos begin!

Great plan, right?

With the boys seated, I flipped off the lights and a low murmur started to build. It rolled, louder and louder and became more intense and frenzied and I immediately realized that plunging the students into darkness was a very bad idea, indeed. Before the spotlight even came on to light our student council, Big Mac maniac, I switched the lights back on entirely forgetting that these particular gym lights took a full minute to cycle completely back to life. At that very moment, the student council kid did what he was supposed to do: when the spotlight hit him, he started firing Big Macs into the stands with ferocity. 

And the screaming started. Boys were shoving one another to get a hamburger, they were yelling and laughing and jostling and lunging.

Being a teacher means being helpless sometimes. I sure learned that lesson that day.

No one was injured. The students had fun. I had a long talk with the principal.

No harm, not much foul.

But I still despise pep rallies.