Any way we look at the calendar, we must inevitably reach one conclusion: the calendar is winding down on the school year. 

It is a time of anticipation. A break is coming. We can almost taste it. 

Thank. God.

But while we experience the joy of these last days, we ought to remember they can be a time of intense stress for our students. Yes, we have much to do, but so do they. Though their perceptions may not always be accurate, our students can feel that the whole year comes down to the next few days, that all they have done all year will not amount to anything if they do not nail it now. They may feel that the next few days are the most critical ones.

While I would be very skeptical of a system or a teacher or a class that backloads everything for students who are not in college to the last few minutes of the year, I know it happens. I know students feel this way.

I know it. You do, too. 

Heck, you may agree they should feel this way, that they should be pounding right until the end and that these days should be circled in red.

Fine. Any and all of the above is fine.

But, please, for the love of your students, remind them of this, repeat this, tell them this: “You can succeed.”

It is my hope they have heard this from you in overt and covert ways all year.

They should have.

But now, more than ever, remind them: “You can succeed.”

Your words have power. Your words have meaning.

There is a wonderful moment in the terrific show The West Wing when speech writers Sam Seaborn and Toby Ziegler are developing material for the President of the United States to deliver at the Annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. These comments are intended to showcase the President’s lighthearted relationship with the Fourth Estate and are supposed to engage, amuse and challenge.

It is not going well for these fictional writers.

As they review their work, Sam says to Toby: “You know what they forgot? They forgot to bring the funny.”

Not every leader is funny. Not every leader has the ability to make light of situations. Not every leader can readily make people laugh. But every leader should consider leaning into lighthearted moments. Every leader should consider creating lighthearted moments. Bringing the funny tends to put people at ease.

Leaders should not forget to bring the funny (especially as the end of the year is SO CLOSE). The ability to make people laugh and to release the tensions of challenging situations should not be underrated. 

The work we do can feel relentless. Lightening things up is a welcome relief for those we lead. 

Bring. The. Funny.

As we approach the end of this school year, the thoughts of many students turn ever more pressingly to grades. While it may well seem that some of these students are considering their final grades for the first time, most in our buildings are looking at the bottom line and, typically, they are wanting to know how to move it. The ante is upped this time of year and the pressure around grades seems to rise with each passing day in May.

There has been a significant and important conversation in academic circles around the entire concept of grades and educators, too, are ramped up about them at the end of the school year. Many avoid the term “grades” and substitute the word “assessment” when they discuss their students’ progress in their classes. Many talk about “mastery” and “progress” and “formal and informal reflections” and these terms are not simply turns of phrase. 

“Grades” is a word that suggests the result of a review of a final product. Other words connote the overview of a process.

This is a very important distinction and how a school in general and a teacher individually measure student progress says very much about how both the school and the teacher function. It also indicates how the learning process is conceptualized by school leaders.

A focus on end result versus a focus on process defines much of what a school does and defines almost all of what a teacher does. Grading is a teacher-centered process: the teacher grades the assignment; the student is graded. Assessment is a collaborative process: the student illustrates her progress towards understanding and mastery; the teacher collaborates with the student.

If the days of asking students to memorize and return sets of facts and figures to their teachers are not over in your school, I would suggest you might wish to ask yourself some questions about your method of proceeding. Neither do students of today truly learn this way, nor does the world of today function this way. Grades tend to value how students master a series of objective facts. Assessment tends to value how students master the overall process of learning.

Schools which are focused primarily on grades – on the product and not the process – are schools preparing students for a world that is long past. 

At this point of the school year, it is far too late for a school or teacher to change the approach to end marks. However, the summer approaches and the cyclic nature of our work means fall cannot be far behind.

As summer begins, take a deep breath, enjoy a few moments of down time and then consider the tension between assessment and grades. Consider how you value each. Consider why you ask your students to do what you ask them to do and consider the type of reality for which you are preparing them. Are you more concerned with what they can produce or how they produce? Is not how our students critically think at least as important as what they think? Is not what they think deeply influenced by how we have taught them to think? 

How do we know?

May 2024.

Already.

In schools, we have much to do, much we are asked to do and much that we take upon ourselves. We have full calendars, overflowing plates, and deadlines – many of which we truly cannot miss. We work with students and adults who present challenges to us, who make demands on our time and who, on occasion, may cause us stress.

Stress happens.

At this time of year in particular, we sometimes feel stress, sometimes feel strung out, and sometimes feel we are not at our best.

So, please, listen to me: walk the track.

Somewhere in your building or on your grounds, I trust there is a space you can walk – an open, extended space where you can get out of your typical environs, get moving, get a pace on. Hopefully there is someplace you can go when you need to stretch your legs.

Perhaps there is a track.

Getting up and walking is more than a chance to change your venue and your vantage point. It is a chance to get up and get out, to exercise whatever feelings have built up in you by exercising yourself. It is a chance to shake off ennui and frustration and to do something proactive to assist in your own renewal. It is a chance to refresh and renew and get ready for the next item on the stretch run.

A person with whom I used to work and whom I respect very much made a pledge to our entire leadership team one May not too long ago and I have not forgotten it. 

“I promise, if you need to, if you want to, I’ll walk the track with you,” he said.

I think I should have taken him up on that request more often than I did. 

I am at a new school. It has a track.

Leaders navigate waters both smooth and choppy. They encounter colleagues, students and parents at both their best and their worst. They inspire positive experiences. They are held responsible for negative ones.

Leaders have histories.

Leaders create histories.

Leaders leave histories behind them in their wake.

And leaders are human. There are moments in their histories of which they are very proud. There are moments in their histories of which they are not. There are students and colleagues they truly enjoy. There are students and colleagues they would like to never consider again. There are signposts they can point to which are very positive and there are those that are starkly negative.

They have met people and done things.

They have left footprints.

The best leaders let all of that go. 

Leaders who are successful understand that, while they have a track record, they do not have to be defined by it. Nor do they allow themselves to be.

They do not live in their successes and they do not dwell in their failures. They do not revisit the past unless it is helpful for them to do so. They neither hold grudges nor are they swayed by their own press.

They live in the present. They work in the now. They plan for the future.

None of this can happen effectively without letting go.

Leaders allow the past to stay in the past. They forgive and actually try to forget. They do not prejudge a situation or a person based solely on past contacts and histories.

Leaders who find ways to let go of the past, to understand that conflict and praise are both fleeting, to look forward and not backward are leaders who inspire.

They are leaders I yearn to follow.