Teach Boldly

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…

I can imagine how many lives my son has already inspired in his 3 years as a teacher. I can imagine how many students my grandmother taught in her multiple decades in the classroom. I can imagine all the lives of the young people my uncle and aunt and cousins have changed.

I wish I had clear memories of helping my grandmother decorate her elementary school classroom. I have been told many times that my older sister and I would, late in the summer,  accompany Grandma to her school and assist her as she put up bulletin boards and cleaned desks and got ready for the coming of the fall. I remember the stories of this far better than I remember actually doing this. 

Grandma taught elementary school for her entire adult life. One of the fixtures of her kitchen was a commemorative plate indicating the years she had served at Brown Elementary School. It was prominently placed on the wall above the table at which I ate so many meals. Her time as a teacher meant so much to her.

Grandma influenced generations of teachers just in our family. My uncle, her son, was a college professor and his daughter is one, too. My aunt, married to one of Grandma’s other sons, also was a college professor for many, many years. Her daughter directs a kindergarten and her son is in the midst of switching careers, planning to begin his next chapter of life as a high school teacher. That’s 3 of my cousins who are teachers. My niece’s husband just secured his first teaching position after serving as a student teacher this year.

I have been a high school educator and administrator for almost 30 years. 

My son, who turns 24 today, has dedicated his life to teaching as well, earning his master’s degree in education and following in his father’s, relatives and great-grandmother’s  footsteps into the family business.  I couldn’t be more proud of him.

For her part, Grandma never told me she was proud of this legacy and she might not have recognized it as such but a legacy it surely is. 

I cannot do the math, but I can imagine how many lives my son has already inspired in his 3 years as a teacher. I can imagine how many students my grandmother taught in her multiple decades in the classroom. I can imagine all the lives of the young people my uncle and aunt and cousins have changed. 

I imagine it to be a very, very large number.

Thank you, Grandma, for starting the family business. Thank you, my son, for continuing the tradition.

Even in the midst of this pandemic, I would not change this work and I would not alter Grandma’s legacy.

We dropped to one case this past week. One. I am not certain if this is a result of vaccinations or herd immunity rising or families simply not telling us anymore, but I suspect it’s a combination of these factors. I am glad of the lower numbers, to be sure. With weeks to go before the end of the year and senior finals in our school beginning today, I am crossing every apendage I can that our numbers remain low for the next 14 days…

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…

… (teachers) have been asked to do the improbable. They have done it incredibly well. They have done it impossibily well.

Appreciate.

This is a nice word. “I appreciate you” is a nice phrase. Appreciation is a nice sentiment.

Nice.

This week, schools across the United States celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week. In the opinion of this high school educator and administrator, a guy with almost 30 years experience, there has never been a year in which teachers should be more appreciated.

Teachers have been asked to react, reevaluate and redesign every piece of everything they have accomplished over the course of their professional lives no matter how short or long those lives have been. They have been asked to do this in the midst of actually doing it. They have been asked to pivot, change and adapt. They have been asked to put themselves on a particular version of the front lines. They have been asked to become things they never anticipated being: webcam operators, online teachers and internet educators. 

They have been asked to do the improbable.

In my estimation, they have done it incredibly well. They have done it impossibly well.

Do I appreciate the amazing work of the faculty and staff of the school I serve.

Hell, yes, I do.

But I need a different word. I need a better word. 

“Appreciation” is a nice word.

Awe is better. 

I am in awe of teachers.

You should be, too.

The number of positive cases in our school remained fairly consistent this week. Yay? The wild card, however, is the real and understandable pressure of AP Exams. That College Board, anticipating quarantine and other issues, offers different administration of these tests (as they have always done) does not carry much weight with some families who are already frustrated with quarantines, the pandemic and disruptions in their students’ lives. This has been a significant and draining challenge to manage… and we’ve got a week and a half of APs to go!

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…

Throughout these months though they have sometimes been difficult to see, fixed points have remained and diamond absolutes have endured. Perhaps as the conclusion of the school year rounds into focus, these are easier to identify.

The end of this school year (and it is coming) has felt out of reach and hidden for a very long time. The fog of the pandemic and friction of all but constant change have muddied the vision and knocked some of the usual signposts off the radar. Summer is coming and, with it, perhaps the return to some kind of normalcy, but this school year has been charged with uncertainty. 

Schools have repeatedly recreated themselves to respond to the pandemic’s changing landscape, to state and local health orders, of demands to parents and students and faculty and staff becoming something new while trying to remain something familiar. While the challenges have been significant, the successes have surely been equally so.

Throughout these months though they have sometimes been difficult to see, fixed points have remained and diamond absolutes have endured. Perhaps as the conclusion of the school year rounds into focus, these are easier to identify.

In my school, our conversations have turned to final exam formats, our graduation ceremony, teaching assignments for next year, concluding meetings, professional development maps for 2021-2022 and more. We find ourselves this year as we who have been in education for some time know we find ourselves each year: straddling the end of the year while looking into the next and planning for it. Last spring, we could hardly have said this. We did not know what the next school year would present. This year, we have the fixed points ahead of us, we have compass headings to steer towards and we know our way forward.

There is significant comfort in that. 

Just last week, I wrote that our positivity rate had slowed and that it had slowed considerably. Why did no one remind me of the perils of tempting fate? As much as it slowed last week, it increased this week and we had more cases in the span of 7 days than we have had in any other similar stretch. We are managing, but I will be relived when this part of our school year comes to a welcome end.

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…

One can do a great job and feel it has not been good enough. 

There are teachers in any school that, through who they are, demand almost universal respect from colleagues and students alike. They are the folks who seem to have everything under control, who inspire their students, who juggle their responsibilities with seeming ease, who are the people I want to be like when I grow up. I am blessed to journey with a number of educators who are all but revered in this manner. I had a conversation with one such teacher in the midst of which we spoke about how things had gone for her during the pandemic.

She did not hesitate in her assessment.

“I think I did a really good job,” she said.

“And I feel really crappy about the year,” she concluded.

She spoke about all the things she had learned about herself and her teaching. She discussed all the successes she had experienced in trying new things, hitting walls, blasting through them and moving forward. She talked about how she had grown as a teacher and a leader and how her desire to serve our students was stronger than ever. 

I was moved almost to tears.

“I think I did a really good job. And I feel really crappy about the year.” 

I learned long ago that attempting to talk anyone out of their feelings is a dead end prospect. Though I could have explained to this teacher the 137 ways that I knew her conclusion about her year was untrue and that she should stick with the first part of her assessment, I also knew that she was feeling what she was feeling and no amount of persuasion would convince her otherwise.

Moreover, she had encapsulated – as only a teacher of her stature, knowledge, talent and experience can – perhaps the central truth of this pandemic year.

One can do a great job and feel it has not been good enough. 

This paradox is So. Damn. True. 

I cannot improve upon the sentiment.

Fortunately, our positive case rate slowed considerably last week. We had only 1 case during the week, a reduction in number aided greatly by the fact that we were only in school 3 days… gaps in the schedule truly help.