Reflections

Today marked the last day of school for our students. Most of them looked incredibly happy to be officially entering the summer season. We held moving up day and said our goodbyes at dismissal. After the students departed, you were busy in rooms cleaning up, packing up, and finishing up end of the year grades. There's always so much to do these last few days. Yet, some of our most important work will be after tomorrow. After our last day together as a full faculty, you will depart for summer. Summer has different options for everyone but always includes a chance to reflect and recharge. As I begin to reflect on this year, I am still grateful for the school community of which I am a part of. My team puts up with a lot from me during the year. I make mistakes and somehow you find a way to support me through them. You've never held me to the "you must be perfect" standard. You've let me be me, faults, flaws, strengths and all.  As I look forward to the su...

Phew. We are almost there. This week will close the third year that I have had the opportunity to work in an amazing middle school. As with any year, I suppose, there have been ups, downs, struggles and celebrations. One of the things I dislike most about June is how we sometimes lose our perspective. We’re tired. We’ve given it all we’ve got.  We start believing generalizations. Generalizations are dangerous. We will sometimes say things that aren't entirely true or accurate due to a heightened emotional state. The feeling may be connected to the statement or it may be connected to what we bring from our personal experience. I am just as guilty of this as anyone else (maybe even more so on particularly stressful times of the year, like now).  When we allow ourselves time to step back from situations, we know what we might have said isn't entirely true. Parts of it might be....but the entire statement? No. We say silly things like: We are doing all of this all ...

June is always a mad rush to get so many things done. No matter what I tell myself about pacing, working with the big rocks first, etc., it always feels manic. It's as if I am living in a real life Frogger game (few may remember what that game is) and I'm working my way between the cars to get to the other side of the road before I'm trampled on and run over. June has so many required compliance items that it becomes difficult to balance those with items that are much more important: face to face time, giving feedback, deep reflection, celebration, expressing gratitude and more. I took some time today with my Superintendent to have a conversation with an amazing teacher. The meeting had nothing to do with paperwork, end of year checklists, or a teacher's contract. It had everything to do with making sure this incredible teacher knew what we both thought of him. It was in the conversation that I was clearly reminded why we really do what we do. I hope I don't e...

Will it be the one who day in and day out refuses to make eye contact with you upon arrival and dismissal? Will it be the group of young men who have begun to try out new ways of getting attention at recess? Will it be the student who told you what a loser you were today and wanted you to leave him alone? Will it be the youngster whose anxiety causes such worry at night that it takes so much strength to face the next day and the unknown that might bring? Will it be the young man who has opened up about some recent poor choices he has made? Will it be the quiet student who stayed up all night working on that end of the year assignment to get it just right? Will it be the girl who has lost every binder and pencil you have provided her all year and just asked you, again, if she could borrow more materials? Maybe it will be the student that disrupted your class yesterday by being disrespectful. I mean, he knew better, right? It's June. You're tired of saying the sam...

Near the beginning of the school year, our outstanding Athletic Director asked me about the possibility of our district forming a Unified Sports team. I don't remember much of the conversation after that except it was a YES and we had recruited a team of adults to act as coaches within days. Unified Sports allows students with disabilities (athletes)  to play alongside peers without disabilities (partners). Unified Sports is about breaking down stereotypes around students with disabilities. Part of creating a Unified Sports Basketball Team is the creation of a Youth Activation Committee (YAC). The YAC group does all of the behind the scenes work to promote and support the team. Our coaches outfitted this group in red t-shirts so they were easily found on game and activity days. These kids led fundraisers, held sign ups, stood up for students and coordinated social media updates. We were overwhelmed early on with starting a team, learning the fundamentals of the program, securin...

Sometimes, our work in schools (teacher, leaders, support staff, etc.) can become very overwhelming. I think that's even more true as we near the end of a school year. I call it the "finish line" syndrome. We see the end and know that we still haven't accomplished a, b or c and we feel responsible for that. We begin to worry about some of our students and what the summer or next year might bring for them. There's a tendency to have one foot still in this year and another in the year ahead. That's dangerous footing. This year still deserves our focus. We know pieces about next year but the uncertainty of some of it can add to our angst about this year ending. Sometimes, things aren't always what they seem. You'll hear one side of a conversation or an interaction and jump to conclusions about the actual conversation before you've heard all sides. Sometimes, you catch yourself wondering if you are indeed on the right path. You second guess decis...

I made time yesterday to watch Joe Mazza's Tedex YouthBHS talk. He's one of those people I follow on twitter. Always thinking to myself about how put together he has it (does he ever stop coming up with new ideas?!).  I assumed, from far away, he had so much figured out. I learned, after watching the video, that he's on the same bumpy journey I am on...that most of us are on, in fact. In the spirit of his 10 assumptions , I offer some of mine. These are life lessons told to me at an early age that have turned out to be false. It's misleading advice that I wish I knew was wrong way back when. I've believed some of it until very recently. I won't go into each assumption here as the details around some of them are still too personal, to close to the heart, too much. I'll simply let the absurdity of each assumption speak for itself. In no particular order... 1.  Your weight determines what people think of you. 2.  Quiet girls are more accepted than obno...