Teach Boldly

If you have been a reader of this blog, you might remember that, years ago, my good friend and educational leader Sean Gaillard (author of The Pepper Effect – great reading for any and all Beatles fans and educators!) introduced me to the idea of #OneSong to define a year which developed into the idea of a mixtape to define a year which morphed into the concept of a playlist to define a year  

Annually now, I put together a playlist to lead me with energy, optimism and enthusiasm into the upcoming school year.

If you want to listen as you read, HERE is my playlist!

• A Head Full of Dreams – Coldplay

As we begin this new year with – one hopes – fewer pressures than we had last year, my hope is that we all have aspirations and heads full of dreams… that’s the way to begin any new venture, especially a new school year!

• Found/Tonight – Ben Platt & Lin-Manuel Miranda

Our students are looking for many things, no matter their age, no matter who they are, no matter what came before this year. They are looking for their narrative, for their identity and they are looking for it right now. It is part of our job as educators – and a very important one at that – to help them find it. Right now. Tonight.

• Dirty Work – Steely Dan

Some of what we do this year will feel like dirty work. And we won’t want to do it. But we will… because that’s who we are. That’s what we do.

• Find Your Way Back– Beyonce

During the course of the year, we all get lost. Our students find themselves in shadow. We discover we had a plan that went off the rails. We are down roads we never thought we would go. It’s in those times we need to remember that we can (and WILL!) find our way back.

• Hundreds of Stories – Lin-Manuel Miranda

Hundreds of stories? THOUSANDS. We will encounter thousands. Let’s hear as many as we can.

• Lovely Day – Bill Withers

Having a mindset that each day is gift and each day is lovely can only help in the work we do.

• September – Earth, Wind and Fire

In minutes, it will be September… and I love the fall and the joyful expression of it in this song!

• Shake It Off– Taylor Swift

The defeats will come. The days that are longer than we feel they should be. The situations that we never could anticipate and don’t want to handle. The slights – perceived and real – will challenge us. There are many reactions when these things happen. One of them will be to shake them off.

• Show Me What I’m Looking For – Carolina Liar

All of us who are educators are looking for meaning in this work. One of the reasons last year was so hard for me (and, I think, for many teachers) was some of the meaning was subsumed in dealing with the challenges of the pandemic. I think many of us will be looking for more from the work this year. I certainly will.

• This Is It – Kenny Loggins

Here comes the school year. We get ONE 2021-2022 shot at it. This. Is. It.

• We Take Care of Our Own – Bruce Springsteen

If there is one thing I believe we are called to do as educators, it’s to take care of our students. If there is one thing I am called to do as a principal, it’s to take care of this faculty I serve.

In previous iterations of this blog, I have written about teachers in fiction and film and I have written about teachers in music and on stage. I have wanted to point out that, while culture tends to promulgate the “those who can, do, those who cannot, teach” idiocy, there are hundreds of examples of brilliance in pop culture. 

Every-other-week this year, I will share my brief reflections on Smart People Doing Smart Things be they in literature, in film, in music or in real life. Many will be teachers, but not all. Many will be fictional, but some will be real. All will be inspiring.

At least they will be to me.

Welcome to IntelliPop!

This is where I begin again.

The fall is all but upon us. The new school year is as well.

My excitement for the next nine months is real and authentic and genuine and I just used three words that all mean the same thing (hello, West Wing fans). Please read that as how legitimately pumped I am standing on the precipice of a new year.

This school year marks my 29th in high school education. Wow. 

Before my 27th year – the 2019-2020 school year, I would have told (and likely did tell) anyone who asked that I had seen it all, that there were few surprises left in store for me. I was still loving the work (still do!) and the students and serving the faculty and staff I am blessed to serve, but some of the tropes and patterns were expected and almost predictable.

Then: pandemic.

Then: Emergency Remote Learning.

Then: quarantines.

Then: the predictable became unpredictable.

Over the course of the last two school years, those of us in education have reimagined almost everything about how we do what we do. It was a massive and gut-wrenching undertaking. It was immediate. It was necessary. It was exhausting.

But that’s the past.

The present is excitement and energy and enthusiasm. 

Four years ago, when I joined the staff of my beloved school, I shared a Guide to Me so that folks would have a sense of who I was and how I anticipated doing things. I was an outsider. I thought an introduction was in order. This year, I updated that document by slimming it way down. I shared with our faculty and staff my Two Simple Goals:

Goal One – Support, encourage and inspire our adults so they can support, encourage and inspire our students.

Goal Two – Define the WHY for our school for the next five years. 

Keep it simple, Stupid, I am telling myself. Keep it very simple. 

Do these two things and the 2021-2022 school year will be a success.

This is where I begin again.

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…

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Last May, in the confusion of a school year that limped to the finish line and felt – in some ways – like it has never actually concluded, we did not know when we would return or how we would return. This May, calendars are set, fall meetings are scheduled, autumn plans are on the books.

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mere days, students that we in education worked so very, very hard to get back in school will be thrilled to leave it. Faculties will clear out class rooms, leave the halls and transition into their summers. School buildings will once again be empty. Lights will be dimmed. Doors will be locked.

This time, however, we know when we will be back.

Last May, in the confusion of a school year that limped to the finish line and felt – in some ways – like it has never actually concluded, we did not know when we would return or how we would return. This May, calendars are set, fall meetings are scheduled, autumn plans are on the books.

There is comfort in that, a comfort that has a powerful mental and emotional effect. 

When asked by family and friends outside of education to describe the pandemic “year,” more often than not I have said “it’s been impossible” and it surely felt as though it was. The choices I faced as an educational leader, the unanticipated situations and the balancing of the good “bad” decisions, the mistakes I know that I made all contributed to a sense of impossibility, and a feeling that I was not serving anyone well from our students to our faculty to our families to our community at large. I have never in my career felt more out of touch, out of place or out of control.

This past Saturday was graduation at my school and, as I shook the last hand and as the caps were thrown, I felt a sudden shift, a lifting of a weight and a definite and palpable unburdening.

The finish line which had seemed so distant as to be unreachable came into view. 

There will be time in the coming weeks to reflect on the year and to celebrate its successes. Perspective will have its moment and I will be able to review the pandemic months with more objectivity. The summer brings peace. It brings time off. It brings solemnity.

Most immediately, it brings the finish line.

This is the final edition of Teach & Serve Volume 6. 

Look for Volume 7 on Wednesday, August 4, 2021

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We didn’t get out of the year without one final quarantine this past week. Is it the last of the pandemic? I hope and I pray that it is!

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…

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The end of the year is weeks away. That will truly be time to slow down. Of all the messages I wanted to embrace from the playlist this year, I ignored this one far too frequently.

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If you have been a reader of this blog all year, you might remember that, years ago, my good friend and educational leader Sean Gaillard (author of The Pepper Effect – great reading for any and all Beatles fans and educators!) introduced me to the idea of #OneSong which developed into the idea of a mixtape which morphed into the concept of a playlist. For the last few years, I have put together a playlist to lead me with energy, optimism and enthusiasm into the upcoming school year.

As we have reached the penultimate edition of Teach & Serve for this year, I thought it might be fun to revisit the music I had planned to listen to over the course of these past nine months and to reflect on my reasoning.  

If you want to listen as you read, HERE is my playlist!

• Treat People with Kindness – Harry Styles

Fall of 2021: What other message could we need for our world right now? I can’t think of another. 

Spring of 2021: I will make this song my anthem over the next two weeks. I promise.

• Higher Ground – Stevie Wonder

Fall of 2020: We all need to reach for higher ground. We all need to be aspirational. We all need to inspire… This Stevie Wonder song can make us feel like we can make it happen. Spoiler alert: we can.

Spring of 2021: I could have done a better job of reaching the higher ground. It’s perfectly fine at the end of the year to realize we didn’t reach every aspiration, and to reach out again.

• Side Pony – Lake Street Dive

Fall of 2020: Over the course of the quarantine, I listened (with my daughter) to Lake Street Dive for the first time and while this song is, perhaps, not my favorite of theirs (I really like the cover of Hall and Oates’ Rich Girl), this song really fits this time period. And my pony tail.

Spring of 2021: My ponytail is gone. The silly joy of this song is not… 

• Steady As She Goes – The Raconteurs 

Fall of 2020: As we proceed through this year, the manta “steady as she goes” will be critical.

Spring of 2021: In retrospect, keeping things steady was the most important task of this past year. While I failed at it often, I think I succeeded overall. Lost some battles, won the war. 

• Vienna – Billy Joel

Fall of 2020: “Slow down you crazy child…” is the command that begins this underrated song by Billy Joel and that idea of taking a breath is powerful, right here and right now in our world. Each decision we make this year as educators is going to come at us very, very fast. We have to and would be well served to slow it all down.

Spring of 2021: The end of the year is weeks away. That will truly be time to slow down. Of all the messages I wanted to embrace from the playlist this year, I ignored this one far too frequently. It was far too difficult to slow down this year. Look for Vienna on my playlist next fall… I will continue to search for it.

• It Don’t Come Easy – Ringo Starr

Fall of 2020: They say nothing worth having comes easily. I have a feeling this year, no matter how we as educators and administrators try to negotiate these days and weeks, none of it will come easy. I don’t know about my colleagues, but I feel like I’ve already paid enough dues…

Spring of 2021: Not one damn thing feels like it came easy this year and it seems we all continue to pay our dues. Reminding myself, even at the end of this year, that nothing comes easy makes me feel better. A little. 

• My Shot – Lin-Manuel Miranda

Fall of 2020: Just as I was last year, I am all but overwhelmed by My Shot. This powerful anthem continues to speak powerfully to the idea that we must seize the moments that can change our lives. This is a good mantra for us and for our students. Rise up, indeed. Especially now.

Spring of 2021: Rise up. Rise up. Rise up. I’ll be back next fall and take my shot again.

• One Last Time – Lin-Manuel Miranda

Fall of 2020: Another Hamilton song that features the important message that each moment, each step, each time could be our last. Sometimes we have to let go, say goodbye and know that we are doing things one last time. Such a critical message. None of us is bigger than the work. None. This song is a holdover. We’ll see if it makes it 3 years in a row next year…

Spring of 2021: None of us is bigger than the work. None. Personnel are departing the school as is the case each fall, some will be more readily replaced than others. Some need to look around and give themselves One Last Time. I will try to help them do so.

• Get It Right Next Time – Gerry Rafferty

Fall of 2020: We will make 1000 decisions as administrators and teachers this year and many of us (myself included) will push each and every one of those to be perfect decisions. We will want to only make decisions with which everyone agrees and behind which everyone can stand. It won’t happen. When we make decisions, we also can make mistakes. That is okay provided we give ourselves the chance to get it right next time.

Spring of 2021: I think I made over 1000 decisions this year. I hope to be in a position to make fewer next year. Regardless of the amount of choices I make, I remain committed to giving myself the chance to get it right… next time.

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It was a shockingly quiet week on the quarantine front. Shockingly. I won’t jinx things with more words than I’ve arleady used…