When I first began teaching, I did not laugh with my students much.

 I thought the oft repeated adage “don’t let them see you smile until Christmas” good advice. For a very long time, I tried to rein in the impulse to laugh, to joke, to be humorous. Later when I became an administrator, I thought it all the more important to be serious – to treat administrative jobs with as much gravitas as they deserved.

And, for a very long time, the very last thing I would laugh at publically was myself.

True story: I once applied for a job I did not get which was kind of a big deal.

I had served a year as acting principal of my alma mater, taking over the role after the individual who preceded me was let go in late May. It was not a “parting of the ways” that was terribly well orchestrated or planned out. Though I was hopeful to have a principal job at some point in my career, this was not the way I thought the position would come to me.

Nonetheless, in the early spring of the ensuing year, I applied for the actual job, eager to get the term “Acting” removed from the title, anxious to hold the position without asterisk. I interviewed. I thought I had done well. I received signals indicating I was the horse to beat. I heard from my direct supervisor that I could rest easy.

That is not the way things went.

Some of the hardest months of my professional life were those immediately following that decision. 

In truth – and this is not hubris – most people thought I would receive the position. When I did not, there was some surprise and the faculty had to be told. I thought they needed to be told by my supervisor. He agreed and we determined that the faculty would be informed at the normally scheduled faculty meeting which was only two days after I was told I would not be the principal. 

We agreed that I would wait in the hallway outside the library where the meeting was happening while he shared the news and I would join the meeting after he was done. We calculated that 10 minutes would be more than enough time for the news to be conveyed and, when 600 seconds had passed, I opened the library doors and walked through them.

Perhaps you are familiar with know the electronic sensors most libraries have at their doors to prevent books and materials from being taken without being checked out. Our library had these and, while I was not carrying a book of any kind, those sensors decided that announcing my presence to the gathered faculty at that particular moment immediately after they heard I would not receive the principal position for the coming year was the right thing to do.

I entered. The alarms blared. The faculty turned to see what was causing the sound and there I was.

“Perfect.” I said, laughing. “That’s perfect.”

And it was.

I laughed. I laughed loudly and deeply. I laughed perhaps the most real laugh I had been able to muster since hearing I was not selected for the job because – what the hell? – it was pretty damned funny.

When I laughed, many of my colleagues followed suit.

What we do is serious work. We hold the future of children in our hands. We are trusted to do hard and good work with our students. This is a pursuit none of us should take for granted or lightly. But how often are we wound tightly by the seriousness of our work? How often are we so taken with the gravity of the job that we forget to smile? How often do we suppress the urge to let go?

The question should be: how often, each and every day, do we laugh.

And how often do we allow others to laugh at and with us?

As teachers and administrators, we have to give our colleagues and our students our permission to laugh because what we do is serious and it often is hard and challenging. We are, in fact, shepherding the future.

It is a pretty awesome responsibility.

Let us not make it a grave one, as well.

Let us laugh and let us allow people to laugh with us.

And laugh at us.

I believe that Star Trek has formed me as an educator as much as any coursework, professional development, or experience I have ever had.

57 years ago this past September 8, Star Trek premiered on NBC television. The year was 1966. Star Trek concluded its short, three-year run in the summer of 1969 before I premiered. The ensuing almost six decades have seen that original concept result in 12 television series and 13 movies, rather remarkable for a television series that was not particularly successful when it first aired.

I have detailed my “Star Trek Origin Story” at other times in this blog and have been a Star Trek fan almost as long as I can remember. I enumerate my favorite episodes, my favorite quotes, and my favorite captains with anyone who will listen. I rewatch the shows and the movies regularly. I eagerly await all new installments of the franchise. Star Trek is my first and most abiding love.

There is a “why” question here. Why is Star Trek so important to me, so formative for me?

I considered this query this past September 8 – the now christened (and heavily marketed) “Star Trek Day” and believe I actually have arrived at my answer.

At the conclusion of Star Trek The Motion Picture, a movie I saw in theaters with my grandmother (who fell asleep!), a title card appears announcing “The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning.” I was nine at the time and mortified by my snoring matriach and had little idea what a human adventure might be.

Almost five decades later, I think I understand.

Star Trek has endured as a touchstone for me (and, I must assume, in pop culture) because it embraces the human adventure with optimism and hope. My favorite episodes and films feature morally centered characters wrestling with issues they can hardly comprehend and overcoming them not through violence but through intellectual curiosity. My favorite installments challenge those characters to grow in their knowledge of themselves and their universe. My favorite moments are those in which the characters are enlightened by something they did not know and that new information changes them.

And us.

The human adventure, it turns out, can difficult. It does not follow a nearly straight line. There are set backs on it. There are wrong turns. There are defeats. There is work, work that can seem impossible and overwhelming and never completed. 

But the human adventure is also incredibly rewarding. It is rewarding for those who are centered and curious, those who embrace challenge and grow, those who are optimistic and open to change.

I have been an educator for over 30 years and the words that I used to describe my journey though that vocation are so very similar to the human adventure epitomized by Star Trek that they have become engrained in me.

The human adventure of working with students and teachers is, for me, always just beginning…  

Relationships in our schools are often defined by who is in charge. The majority of people observing a typical classroom setting would likely conclude that a teacher is in charge. The majority of people walking into a faculty meeting where the principal is speaking would likely conclude that the principal is in charge. The majority of people watching a coach address her team before a game would assume the coach is in charge.

These statements do not come from any place of hard research. I do not have a ton of data to back them up. While I cannot swear by them, I am all but sure they are true.

But what happens in a classroom when the students decide that the teacher’s expectations are out of line or that the teacher does not know what he is talking about or that the teacher can be readily taken off track of his lesson? What happens when the faculty grades during the principal’s address or checks Twitter (I cannot bring myself to call it “X”) while she is talking or all but completely disregards what the principal has to say? What happens when the players determine that they are going to ignore what the coach is saying or that they are going to run their own plays or that they are barely feigning interest in what the coach has to say?

What happens?

What happens is pretty simple. What happens is a transfer of power. In all the cases above, the person in charge, the person in front of the team or the faculty or the class is supposed to have the power. That person is supposed to be the authority, to wield influence, to be the center of attention. But, in each of these cases, power has been usurped. Sometimes this usurpation of power is unconscious by those doing the usurping.

The student who thinks his teacher is a moron is not saying to himself “Hey, I’m not paying active (or any) attention to the teacher right now so I’ve really taken away his power” any more than the faculty member or student-athlete is. Regardless, in all three of these situations, the expected balance of power has been  short-circuited. The question is: who is to blame?

When we are in positions of leadership as teachers and administrators, we can become accustomed to the idea that our word is law, our authority is ironclad, and our way is THE way. We can forget that power is, like most everything else in our work as educators, a function of relationship. While a grade book, a meeting agenda, or a playbook may hold the intended audience’s attention for a time, they do not grant the bearer power

Power, true power in classroom teaching and school leadership comes from recognizing that power is cultivated when shared. Power is, dare I write, powerful, only when it is a function of community.

If your students want to take charge, they can. There are more of them than you. The fact that you remain empowered by them is because they allow it. If your faculty wants to take over your meeting, they can. The fact that you are given their attention is out of politeness or because they respect you. If your players want to run their own show, they can. The fact that they truly listen to you is because you connect with them.

As coaches,  teachers, and administrators, we must be wary of being too comfortable with our power and must always understand that power is a covenant to be respected, nurtured, and cared about. It is never to be taken for granted. 

When we forget this dynamic, we may find that we are not actually wielding the power we thought we had. That can be a very scary place to be.