Teaching is noble work. Teaching is praiseworthy work. Teaching is God’s work.
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.
“What is your goal for us?” or “what is your goal for the school?” or a variation of those interrogatives are fair questions to be asked of a principal new to her or his position.
I have been a new principal three times.
In each stop, at Regis Jesuit High School, Mullen High School, and Xavier College Preparatory High School, I have been asked this question. It has seemed that the person asking the question truly wanted an answer and expected me to have one. I thought the unstated implication was that if I did not have one, the institution would have made a mistake in hiring me.
Typically, my response to this question has been something along the lines of “oh, I have a plan, don’t worry about that.” Sometimes I would say “I don’t want to scare you with my plan” and smile.
The reality, however, is that, were I truly pressed, I would have had a hard time clearly articulating what my plan actually was.
My philosophy as an educational leader which I have embraced over the years is to allow the community to develop plans, to suggest directions, and to map the future together. I have rarely – if ever – wanted to lay out my own, fully articulated blueprint. I have never, to the best of my recollection, decided the direction of a school I have served and expected or demanded that the staff and teachers simply fall in line.
I believe that is not my style. After all the years, I hope it is not.
However, in the lastest stop at Xavier College Prep, I had a unique onboarding. The school was able to add me to the staff in March and I got to meet with each member of the community one-on-one as their year wrapped up simultaneously to my tenure beginning.
That was a real gift.
In those conversations, more often than not, I was asked “what is your plan for the school?”
It began to be unseemly that I did not have an answer.
Surely a principal has a plan. Surely the person in That Office has expectations. Surely the educational leader has an idea where the school should go.
As end of the year meetings approached, knowing I had 45 minutes to speak with the faculty to send them off into their summers, I reflected on and prayed about this question, the answer to which was found in the most unlikely of places.
In the late spring, comedian John Mulaney was interviewed on David Letterman’s My Next Guest Needs no Introduction program. A fan of both men, I was eager to watch the show.
Mulaney is Jesuit educated. He is a graduate of Georgetown University. He went to high school at St. Ignatius Preparatory in Chicago, IL. Part of the Letterman interview was filmed at St. Ignatius in December of 2023.
The entire show is worth watching as Mulaney opens up with Letterman about his life, drug addiction and recovery, and fatherhood. It is a powerful show.
But, during the interview when Mulaney was asked about his experiences at St. Ignatius, he made two comments that resonated with me so much that I immediately rewound the show to watch them again.
Of his time at the school, Mulaney said: “When I was a student I thought ‘Oh my God, they are on our case 24/7. Luckily we have this theater to goof off in and do things.’ And I’m here now and I’m like ‘well, they built it, you know? It wasn’t like a clubhouse we found in a sewer, you know?”
Letterman follows up this comment with the question: “Did you like high school better than college or college better than high school?”
Mulaney immediately replies: “I liked college better than high school but the education in high school was better than college. Yeah.”
Letterman is suprised. “Wow!”
Mulaney: “Oh yeah. This was the best education I ever got.”
And thus was articulated my goal by a man far smarter than I.
At our faculty meetings, I set up this clip with something about Mulaney’s background as a St. Ignatius and Georgetown grad and andI said: “Okay, many have wanted to know what my goals for us are. I can’t articulate them better than this.”
There were a few audible gasps.
Truly.
Whether Mulaney knows it or not – and I believe he does, he is a very smart guy – the “education” he is talking about is not simply academic. It is about the whole person. It is about how good teachers, counselors, and coaches work together to allow a student to grow in every way imaginable.
So, this is my goal. It is two pronged. Be a school where students can find themselves, their passion, and their relationship with God within our guardrails and guidelines and be a school that provides our graduates with the best education they ever got.
Please join me in this post for an annual tradition: the beginning of school playlist!
Readers of the blog may 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 a must read for educators!) introduced me to the idea of #OneSong which developed into the idea of a mixtape which morphed into the exercise of developing an annual 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.
My specific criterion for songs to make my list:
songs whose lyrics of the song resonate with me,
songs that move me,
songs that inspire me,
songs that send me.
The goal here is to play the list and rocket into a new year on the most positive of notes… pun intended.
Generating positive energy is the goal. Generating it through music is a gift.
Doing some truly rough math (the only math I know how to do), I am confident in saying that I have written over 500 posts about education over the past nine years.
This post officially begins the 10th year of the Teach and Serve blog.
Paradoxically, it feels like I have been doing this forever while I cannot believe that 10 years have already passed.
Time. It does fly.
Over the course of this past decade – which began with me working at the Jesuit Schools Network, saw me, for various reasons both wonderful and painful, move to Mullen High School, to KIPP’s Northeast Denver Leadership Academy and, finally, to Xavier College Preparatory High School – I have posted a blog almost every week of the academic year. I chose Wednesdays as the days my blog would post, likely because I thought the middle of the week gave me two days to remember to post, also likely because Wednesdays have traditionally been the days that new comic books are published. Anyone with passing familiarity with me or with Teach Boldly knows that comic books are a rather big part of my life. For the majority of these 10 years, I have posted once a week on Teach Boldly. For some years, I chose to write companion pieces every-other-Thursday focusing on a specific theme. There have been some repeated posts, some reworked posts, and some posts wherein I simply plagiarized myself.
Doing some truly rough math (the only math I know how to do), I am confident in saying that I have written over 500 posts about education over the past nine years.
500.
That is a lot of posts and leaves me with the question: what more do I have to say?
I am not entirely sure, but, this past summer, I made the determination to give this one more whirl. 10 is such a nice number.
Welcome, then, to the 10th year of Teach and Serve. How much I have left to say that I have not already said remains to be seen. Whether any of what is to come is relevant or interesting is surely up to you, Dear Reader (and thank you for reading!).
Here is what I know about this 10th year:
I am going to be dedicated to publishing new material weekly,
I have already mapped out the entirety of the year’s posts,
I am going to give my honest opinions about the state of many things in education,
I am going to try to get more people to read the blog (YOU can help – please share with friends!),
and this might be the last year of Teach and Serve. We will see.
So, here we go. Once more unto the breach. One more time.
In the late May morass, we are likely to forget to acknowledge to ourselves that we have, in fact, changed lives.
Late May in schools is rife with many emotions. Teachers and administrators are ready to bid the year farewell and to get to summer vacation. Late May brings with it the promise that an opportunity for rest and recharging is not far away. Certainly there are some obstacles yet to clear with exams or grading final projects, cleaning out of classrooms and turning in of reports, packing up materials and checking out of buildings.
Though the end is nigh, there are still things to do.
Our students have things to do, too and they normally do not accomplish one of the most critical tasks at the end of the school year. With varying degrees of seriousness and success, they approach their final projects and tests. They clean out their lockers. They sign their yearbooks and they say their goodbyes. But they typically leave out something very important.
Multiple summers down the road, when water has passed under bridges and calendar pages have turned, many former students realize they forgot something back in the spring months of their school days. At some point in the journey of their lives your former students recognize what happened and many seek out past instructors to tell them something profound: “you changed my life.”
It is not entirely fair to expect students living in these late May moments to understand what has occurred in their lives. Some do. Some know the debts of gratitude they owe. Some are able to articulate this to their teachers. But the vast majority have not the breadth of knowledge, the introspection or the reflective capacity to get it.
Not yet.
They have not lived enough life and that is okay. As educators, we know that our students are not finished products. They have more to learn.
And so do we because, in the late May morass, we are just as likely to forget to acknowledge to ourselves that we have, in fact, changed lives.
Working in schools is not like painting a wall. Teachers do not get to blue tape the edges of their students and fill in the gaps until they are fully colored and vibrant. Teachers do not get to see the results of the hours of preparation and the early mornings and the late nights. Teachers do not know the seeds they are planting as they are dropping them in fertile ground. Teachers do not always know the effect they have until long after they have had it.
At this moment, I know full well that many of your students are not paying attention to you in class, are pushing every button you have, and are just as ready to be away from you as you are from them. I know that many of us are just as ready for summer as our charges are. I know that there is much to accomplish and much to do. I know this. But I know something else, too. In late May teachers need this critical perspective and I would like to provide it.
Please allow me to remind all the teachers and coaches and administrators and educational professionals: you have changed lives these last nine months. Please allow me to remind you about something that is profound in our work:
You have changed lives.
Treasure giving that gift, even if those who receive it are not always able to acknowledge that they have.
This is the final edition of Teach & Serve for the 2023-2024 school year.
