“It’s all about relationships.”

I have heard that the work we do in education revolves entirely around the relationships we have with students and parents and colleagues. I have seen Ted Talk after Ted Talk that espouses the same maxim. I have internalized the idea to such an extent that it feels as though it is my own. I have likely passed it off as such.

That the work we do is about relationships is a truism. 

The intent behind it is pure: educational professionals who recognize that their relationships with those they journey will define that very journey are better educators than those who do not share that understanding.

The catch here is that, when the importance of relationships is underscored, there is a presumption that we are in good relationships with others. Not only is this not always the case, this is not always something that an educational professional can control. 

Relationships are partnerships. How both parties in a relationship view the other defines the relationship itself.

What happens when the relationship is bad?

“It’s all about relationships.”

I am skeptical of any teacher who says they have always liked each and every one of their students. That strikes me as statistically impossible. I am also skeptical of any administrator who suggests they have never had a negative feeling about those they serve. 

Sometimes the relationship does not work, is not good, cannot function well.

What happens then?

“It’s all about relationships.”

When a relationship is broken, the educational professional must go to work. I do not believe in one way repairs in relationships. I do believe we can and should control how we react to those with whom our relationships are strained. While we are not always in charge of our thoughts, we are in charge of our actions and our words.

How we treat those we do not readily enjoy – those who know where each of our buttons are and are adept at pushing them – this defines us as professionals.

“It’s all about relationships.”

I believe there was a time, and I fully acknowledge that I am not immune to romanticizing the past, when a school administrator could count on her or his staff being solidly in place before the end of the school year and that that same staff would return intact in the fall. The hiring season for schools was the spring and there were prospects from which to choose. Moreover, once contracts were signed (oh, and we do not offer contracts at school anymore – there are now different documents for employment but that is another story), the staff would remain assembled for the duration of the school year except in very, very rare circumstances.

This is not the case any more.

There are myriad reasons for this significant shift in the ways in which schools do business. I believe this reframing of educational employment caught up with the Gig Economy of the rest of the job world and that forces encouraging it were in place long before the pandemic. I also believe that the pandemic accelerated the mindshift. Regardless of the cause, the truth is that the hiring season at a school is now year-round. Prospects are not always plentiful. Staff depart when they determine they must. 

What is a self-respecting administrator to do?

Keep recruiting. Keep interviewing. Keep working. These are the obvious answers.

What I have found most challenging in this morass is the “July Resignation,” the one you do not see coming. Actually, sometimes you do see it coming, but the effect is the same. A late summer departure is a challenge. 

I have had staff quit on the last payday of the summer. That has felt calculated.

I have had staff come to my office to say “I have to quit unless you raise my salary.” I do not have that kind of power.

I have had people say “you are the reason I am leaving.” Ouch.

I have had staff resign via text and email. Classy.

Especially when that person is leaving a key position – is an AP teacher or a coach or someone who is singularly hard to replace, the desire to say exactly what I am feeling is strong.

I know I cannot remonstrate with the person leaving. To misquote Will McAvoy from The Newsroom, I do not have subpoena power. I cannot keep a teacher at the school. The “contracts” we sign may have some legal consequences if they are broken, but the work to unravel them is rarely worth the effort. I also cannot trash the teacher or administrator when they go, though that is sometimes incredibly difficult. 

I sometimes want to. Very much.

But who would that serve?

“I quit.” 

“I am sorry to see you go. How can I help you transition to your next stop?”

This seems the right approach to me. This is the approach I have settled on after surviving many instances of late spring and summer and late summer/early fall departures.

The school goes on. My ego might take a hit, but I will go on, too.

23 years ago, the term first responders became an unfortunate part of the cultural vernacular. 

As the pandemic played out, “first responders” entered the zeitgeist once again.

People venerate first responders – those who rush into action, into danger, into the fire. Society, rightly it seems to me, praises those who look after others first and consider themselves second. We elevate those who reflexively place the needs of others before their own needs and we are grateful for their work and sacrifice.

We typically think of law enforcement officials and health care workers as first responders. We often widen the definition to include mental health professionals. While those in these professions absolutely deserve much praise, we can look to education and see the same type of response in these professionals each-and-every-day. 

Teachers and administrators are first responders too.

Good educators look to the needs of their students and staff first, they put themselves on the line for them, they protect them. Good educators pay attention to the tenor of their classrooms or or the temperature in meetings, they perceive who is in crisis and try to assist them as they can. They react with kindness and compassion and love.

So very much of the work we do calls us to recognize challenges before us. It calls us to analyze situations and to understand people. It calls us, sometimes in split seconds, to act for the good of the student, the teacher, the department, the class. Excellent educational professionals have the reflexes and insights to make spur-of-the-moment decisions that improve situations for individuals and for groups. They have the ability to diagnose and respond quickly for the good of others.

This is a critical part of our shared work.

Good educational professionals are absolutely first responders, making split-second decisions that affect, change, and, yes, save lives, every moment of every day.

On September 8, 1966, the fabric of American fiction changed when a television series called Star Trek premiered. From the relatively humble beginnings of a tv show that was canceled not once, but twice, a major American entertainment franchise was spawned – a franchise that continues to this very day as new iterations of Star Trek hit bookshelves and screens each-and-every-year. 

So very much has been written about Star Trek. It seems that the phenomenon has been scrutinized from every conceivable angle. I should know. I have been trying to develop a book idea about Star Trek for years and each time I think I have found a clever way in, I discover that someone has already gone out into that particular final frontier. Someday I will crack it.

That coming project may have something to do with the fact that education is so critical to Star Trek. 

The very heart of Star Trek is education. The mission of Starfleet itself is to explore, to seek out, to go. The various crews of the various starships that populate the universe are often “sciencing” themselves out of difficulties or relying on knowledge to understand another culture or are employing diplomacy to extricate themselves from a challenging situation. These are educated people at the tops of their fields, seeking to learn and to grow. 

From its earliest episode, and I mean the first (well, not really the first*) one, the intrepid man of action, Captain Kirk himself, is revealed to have been a teacher before he took command of a starship.  Of Kirk, his best friend Gary Mitchell notes that he was told: “Be careful of Lieutenant Kirk. In his class, you either think or sink.”

It is something of a throwaway line, but I just love the fact that one of my all time favorite characters was a teacher before he was anything else. He was a good one. A demanding one. A memorable one. 

That the original crew of the Starship Enterprise were my fictional role models growing up may well have led me to my vocation in teaching. That Captain Kirk himself was a teacher may have been an inspiration that altered the course of my life.

Fascinating.

* The actual first episode of Star Trek was the unused pilot The Cage, starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike. It was in the second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, that Mitchell uttered these lines about Captain Kirk and, even then, Where No Man Has Gone Before was not the first episode of the series to air. That honor goes to The Man Trap, an “creature of the week” adventure that NBC executives thought represented the show better than Where No Man Has Gone Before. And all of this I know off the top of my head. Maybe I need to get cracking on that Star Trek project!

Some things I have learned in 32 years in education:

• The work that teachers do can be very rewarding.
• The work that teachers do can be very fun.
• The work that teachers do can be very exciting.
• The work that teachers do can be very fulfilling.

True.

• The work that teachers do can be very taxing.
• The work that teachers do can be very tiring.
• The work that teachers do can be very boring.
• The work that teachers do can be very demoralizing.

Also true.

The “can be” operative in the above conclusions and the opposing truths indicate the duality of the work of educators. In one moment, we can be on the highest of highs. In the next, we might find ourselves in the lowest of lows. 

This is challenging work and it impacts teachers in ways that are hard to explain.

Simon Sinek gained much notoriety asking leaders in the business world to articulate their “why,” as in why do you do what you do? Teachers are very, very good at articulating what they do. They are asked to often – by administrators, by students, by parents. They are asked to justify what they do more frequently than they should be.

Rarely, I think, are we asked why.

Having done the work for over 30 years, I know that there is one, single throughline as to the “why” committed teachers do this work. It is simple. It is elegant. It is commendable.

Teachers want to improve people’s lives. 

I am convinced this fact gets lost in the work we do. It gets lost in conversations about classes we teach and curricula we adopt and duties we do and compensation we lament. It gets lost when students carry on, when parents complain, when colleagues critique. It gets lost when grades are due, when meetings are upcoming, when time runs out.

This fact gets lost.

We ought to hold on to it like treasure. We ought to shout it from the rooftops. We ought to print it on t-shirts.

Teachers want to improve people’s lives.

Teaching is noble work. Teaching is praiseworthy work. Teaching is God’s work.

I wish the rest could always simply be noise.

Why do we do it? To improve people’s lives. 

Period. End of sentence. End of paragraph. End of chapter. End of book.