Reflections

It was an especially good day and I was feeling positive about some interactions and steps forward. I had the chance to talk to one of my teachers about one of the events and tried to explain how much I appreciated her hard work and support. I explained: As a teacher, likely your greatest reward is knowing you are making a difference with kids. You want them to remember you as the one that helped. I see my role, as an administrator, the same way except my "kids" are my teachers. Of course, I care about my students and work hard to support and interact with them each day. But, when I began this administration journey, my first "boss" explained to me how each layer of an organization should support and compliment the work of the next layer. One of my main responsibilities is to make sure my teachers have what they need to support students. Think of the phrase "hurt people, hurt people". If we flip that, we can say that supported people support peopl...

He started the workshop by asking us to reflect on a part of our childhood and share that out with strangers. I'm forty five years old but I suddenly didn't feel that old anymore. I was able to remember, in an instant, very specific memories of growing up. Some of those memories were bright and positive and some of them were sad and lonely.  When it became my turn, I spoke about second chances and people believing in me. At my very core, I still bring those experiences to my interactions with others these some 30 plus years later. We can pretend we don't, but we do. There are still words, on a singular level, that can trigger a response from me. Said even in isolation, these words cause an internal reaction. The response isn't even just related to that ONE moment when the word was spoken. Instead the word acts as a key that opens up all the past memories I have associated with that word.  That doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing.  It could be a good t...