Breaking Stereotypes

Recently I was invited by a former student to join his family for dinner and to watch a major sporting event for which the extended family was gathering. I was honored and excited to spend this time with the family and extended family of a student for whom I have great respect. In the years I worked with him, I had only met his nephew who attended the same school.

The invitation came after he and I had met for coffee to catch-up on each other’s life events in the period since I left the school he attended for a different school. After coffee, I asked him to go to a store with me. The store specializes in groceries that are found in stores in Mexico. I wanted to get some genuine ingredients rather than rely on the versions available in my traditional grocery store. I invited him to come along as my translator in case I got stuck. He was stunned that I liked the foods his family liked. He told his sister about the ingredients I purchased in the store and she insisted he invite me to the family dinner that night.

I shattered stereotypes he had of middle-aged white men. He and I always had a good relationship as counselor-student.  We spent hours together as I worked with him developing skills to take timed, standardized tests (SAT, AP, ACT, etc). As an English Language Learner he struggled with time limits on the tests; he knew the answers, but it sometimes took him longer in translation. Despite the hours we spent together, he had no idea most of the food I prepare is inspired by Mexican techniques and flavors.

The depth of his surprise generated some conflicting emotions. That he valued me enough as a person in his life that he wanted to maintain contact meant that I had built a good relationship with him. We educators work very hard at building healthy relationships with students. Too often we see that our professional relationship with a student is the only healthy adult-adolescent relationship they have. However, after the hours of one-on-one time we spent together to find out that he did not know how his culture influenced ¾ of what I eat made me wonder if I drew the lines of personal/professional relationship too strictly.

I have no doubt that he recognized my genuine care and concern for his individual success, but I wonder how much more he and his peers would have benefitted from knowing how much I honored his culture through its daily influence on my life when I worked on the campus rather than discovering it when I am no longer present on a daily basis. On that campus, I ate my lunch quickly, in isolation, in my office between the lunch periods. I do that now - on a campus that essentially mirrors the demographics of the previous campus.

How much would it hurt - or more importantly, how much would it benefit me to eat my lunch in the cafe with the students so that they see 1) how much my food is shaped by their culture and 2) how healthy my diet is on a daily basis? [I am the administrator of a Health Science Academy, I talk about healthy eating during every lunch period as I visit with students about their lunch choices.] My lunch choices are now educational opportunities.

In the last decade, as education has recognized that relationships are an important part of the educational process, identification of the boundary between personal and professional continues to prove challenging for many educators. I have always operated on the conservative side of the debate. My students need to know me and that connection is vital, but they do not need to know the things about me that my friends and family knows. After the recent discovery that my students did not know some details that provided the opportunity for a genuine cultural connection, I need to spend some time considering what in my life builds a valuable connection to students and what continues to bridge into a friendship familiarity. I will reveal more of the details that build a connection while I continue to conceal those things that promote familiarity.

The evening I spent with my former student’s family is one I will always remember. I enjoyed an evening with four generations of a family welcoming me while enjoying one another and celebrating their heritage. Food was the obvious connection but it led to something deeper. I met a family who celebrates their cultural connections. They welcomed me because I value the same cultural connections they do. More importantly, I left the evening recognizing that I will never have another evening with such a family if they do not know where my values lie.

Accentuate the Positive

I cannot remember a time when I have had so little sleep over such a long time as I have in the past month. As many mentions as I have made over the years to coffee and energy drinks (my webpage is called “The Highly Caffeinated Educator” after all), my thoughts now do not lead me toward another paean to the power of chemistry. This time, the energy to go on came from outright terror and the anticipation of something new and good which I was responsible to make happen.

The first week of school has passed and everything is working. Some tweaks remain to be made so everything operates as smoothly as possible, but so far everything has functioned according to plan.

Except for furniture that did not arrive until 6:00 PM the night before school opened.

And late busses.

And an air-conditioning system that randomly picks a room not to cool each day.

Our motto has become, “It is what it is.”

As easy as it might be to focus on the glitches and the inordinate amount of time they take from my schedule, these best laid plans going awry have been overshadowed by the things that have gone right. The teachers have handled every glitch with grace as have the students. Teaching and learning are taking place in all the classes. The students like and value the environment designed for them. The community is proud of the program we have in place.

The glitches have been just that - glitches. None of them harmed anyone or disrupted the activity of the school. I left work each day with a smile on my face. It is really easy to focus and point out the positives with everything working as it has so far.

The outright terror I experienced for the last month that kept me awake pondering every scenario helped get the the right plans in place. Terror can be productive that way. I did not sleep much, but my attention was focused. I have a feeling that every year I am the administrator of a campus I will experience similar terror. As a teacher and counselor, the start of the school year brought long hours and anxiety, but it was nothing like that of an administrator.

The success of the year’s start excites me and has set the tone for a positive year. My goal now is to keep the positive energy going for the entire school year.

New Administrator Lessons #1: My Job

In the last few months I moved from a position as a supporting administrator to the lead administrator on a campus. Because the campus is a center affiliated with a high school, I am not technically the principal; however, I function like one at the center. I also have responsibilities for two programs in the school district spanning sixth to twelfth grades. After about a week into the job, I started noticing “ah-ha” moments when I recognized a change in thinking I had to make in order to be effective. I made notes of these moments and hope my discoveries offer insight to others making the transition or considering moving into administration.

I have always been a do-er. I jump in and make certain the work gets done - usually by doing it myself. Often I justify it by saying, “it’s faster to do it than to explain and get someone else to do it.” Doing the task is not necessarily my job anymore - especially when it involves physical labor. Making certain the task is completed in a satisfactory manner is my job now. Getting the job to satisfactory may require some hands-on supervision, but the next time, the task is completed more efficiently from the start.

Changing roles does not mean I am no longer a do-er. I am not dressed to move furniture or sweep the floors. I am responsible for making the decisions that move all of the work of the school forward. My doing has shifted from physical labor to mental labor. My doing involves building the master schedule and assembling a team to carry it out. I make decisions regarding instructional materials and strategies. I plan and map the flow of bodies through the facility.

I was raised in the country and the many physical chores of the ranch defined labor in my mind. Shifting my mindset from the idea that “real work” involved physical labor to include mental work proved challenging even though I arrive at home at the end of each day completely exhausted. It took seeing results take shape following mental work I had done before I had the “ah-ha” moment that what I was doing was actually work. My administrator training covered the roles of various staff members in a school, but my personal experiences that shaped the idea of work trumped that knowledge until I had enough experience to prove otherwise.

No one who works in a school setting (and does their job well) does not work hard. Changing my personal mindset to value the level of work that goes on from upper administrative decision making to custodial labor was the first major lesson I learned that has made me a more effective leader.

Office Supply or Health Hazard?

Recently a friend of mine shared a Facebook graphic that said “Teaching is the only profession that steals office supplies from home.” I laughed because right now the school "owes" me three reams of paper and at least one toner cartridge because I print so much at home.

Ironically, this same week, mysterious office supplies arrived in my box at work.

One item that appeared in my box was a “package opener.”

I normally use one of my keys. The jagged edge tends to do the job.

But this was a “Safe Cut” package opener. Definitely an improvement.

Until I opened it.

The device had the general shape of a box cutter with the extendable/retractable blade. The “safe” part of it is that it only holds a tiny blade that at most cut 1/4” deep. I opened the package and the first thought that came to mind was that I could not let (insert student name) ever see this.

A frustration of working in education is that the community rarely understands the challenges educators face from day to day because those details are protected by confidentiality laws (for good reason). I have had the opportunity though several jobs in the past to talk one-on-one with legislators and they have no comprehension of the breadth of services schools provide outside the classroom to overcome deficits in basic health and mental health care that exist in the community. I wish I could have a legislator or a state board of education member sit with me for a day to see what goes on in my office as I address the challenges faced by my students from day to day.

Yes. Just a day.

I do not face these challenges each week. They do not come periodically. They do not come weekly. They come daily. Schools are mirrors of the community in which they exist - mental and physical illnesses exist in our community: they make their way to school as well.

Mental HEALTH is inextricably tied to physical HEALTH yet we treat them differently. We will rapidly rally around a co-worker who is unable to work due to a battle with cancer, but we do nothing for the co-worker whose depression makes it impossible to get out of bed in the morning except label that person a slacker. Sadly, the stigma that still surrounds mental illness prevents many from seeking treatment. The stigma also keeps mental illness from being a political or community issue (except those brief outcries when a “crazy” person commits an unspeakable crime). While every mental illness is well defined in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - version 5 being released in May), very few people understand those mental disorders beyond their personal encounters with people living with those disorders. People living with a disorder have behaviors and responses not like most people - leading to them being considered “weird,” “crazy,” or any number of derogatory terms that label the person without considering the illness they have.

Imagine how difficult it is for someone living with a mental disorder to be a student in the school system. Students, by virtue of their young age, have less frame of reference than adults and bring less natural understanding of those different than they are. Adults struggle to understand those around them living with a mental disorder; without explicit instruction, students have a greater struggle. With explicit instruction, school age people can  be much more empathetic.

Yes. I have to consider what office supplies I display on my desk. It may seem silly, but it can be a matter of safety. A student, whose parent has locked away all the knives at home because of that student’s history of self-harm, could pick up that box cutter off my desk. I realize I cannot be responsible for a student’s safety at all times, but I am responsible when that student is in my office and I should consider those things I can do to guarantee safety - even if it means hiding my office supplies.

Critical Lens

As an early adopter of most technologies, I have also been diligent about protecting myself with the technologies. My devices have passwords and I have kept creative passwords that would at least take hackers a while to find. Working with others in the use and adoption of technology, I find that most people have received the message about such cautions. The disturbing trend I have seen recently as I engage more and more professionals through social media is the lack of critical analysis of content.

One of my goals this year was to build a Personal/Professional Learning Network with peers and educators from around the nation I respected for their leadership. To that end, I created Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ accounts that only have educators posts. Refining those streams down to only educators, I am finding that my peers are as susceptible to false information and as likely to propagate it as the greater population on my other social media profiles. While we talk about talking about netiquette and Internet safety with our students, that message had not been applied to our own usage.

As important as netiquette and Internet safety are, learning to be a careful consumer of the vast content rarely even comes up in discussion. Perhaps those of us who are from a generation prior to the advent of the world wide web and did our college research entirely in books, journals, and microfiche (kiddos the link is a Wikipedia article about it) were trained to expect that anything published went through an editorial process, and due to the expense of publication, those texts that made it to publication had the creative or factual value to be trusted. None of these protections are guaranteed or can even be assumed on the Internet.

Wikipedia is one such example. Anyone can register to become an editor/contributor to the collection. The more accurate your contributions prove, the more power you have as an editor. The requirement to prove oneself is a quality check that Wikipedia has in providing accurate information; however, each article is only going to be vetted by persons with an interest/specialty in that area, so inaccurate information may be added to an article and remain there until someone with that interest/specialty checks it again. I sometimes use it as a quick-reference-guide (like I do the illustrated part of my truck’s user manual), but never as a primary source material.

Memes that circulate on social media sites, by definition are infectious and are created to prey on our sense of humor or fear. So far I have not seen one of the fearmongering memes that proved accurate. Most common of the fear-based are those that give directions on privacy settings or regarding certain content. I have yet to see one of those messages that actually accomplishes what it says. A popular one on Facebook making the rounds for a couple years now directs “me” to change what I can see of “you” so that “your” stuff will be protected from people “you” do not want to see it. Yes, I can change what I see of you, but all that does is limit what I see of you (and if you are posting such a meme, then I have likely already severely limited what I can see of you). It does nothing toward allowing/restricting others access to your content: only you can do that with your own privacy settings. More insidious are memes that open one’s account to hackers. Because most people understand so little about the way such content is created and distributed, too many follow the directions thinking they have done some good.

Even content created by professionals requires vetting. Lately my searches have been filled with links to lessons aligned to the Common Core State Standards. I work in Texas. Our leaders rejected the common core standards, so the volumes of excellent materials being created for them do not match the standards approved (and tested) here. Those suggestions may offer creative ideas for lessons, but they will have to be adjusted to the language in our particular standards. The same guidelines apply to content created by the growing education industry. It may be beautifully designed material, but if it does not fit the standards being measured, it is at best inspiration.

The more I have expanded the contacts I have through the various social media, the more I have had to read carefully the information being posted. Some of it is excellent, research-based, articles or suggested applications of new research. Some of it is simply a rant about what the person likes (or more often dislikes) about a topic. People who know me well, know the passionate rants I sometime make. I believe and I believe strongly much of the time.

My rants are not always worthy of publication or even attention. When I find that is all I get from someone I have been following, I consider whether or not I want to continue following that person. That is the purpose of having a critical lens in viewing all content, regardless of the source. Understanding the perspective and point of the author quickly sifts out the content lacking in value. Part of the purpose of having a PLN is to continue and expand my personal learning. For the last nine months as I have eased into it I have been primarily a consumer of content. Following  a few recent encounters, I understand my responsibility to be a creator of content as well. I look at my calendar and I wonder when I will have time to create as much as I am capable of doing, but I find time to do other things I think are important. Doing my part to contribute to the conversation is only right and I can find time to do that. I just hope I am as good a contributor as I am a consumer.

The PLN I Want

My co-workers do not understand why I do not spend every waking moment of conferences hanging out with them. I spend every day with them. At conferences I get the chance to be with everyone else. Most importantly, I get to learn from everyone else. At the conference most of my learning comes from unexpected places and in unexpected ways.

I knew many of the people I follow on Twitter were going to be at the conference - many of them presenting sessions throughout the days. I also planned to go to the tweetup event the conference had scheduled in hopes of meeting many of them.  Beyond meeting them, I was on the shuttle with most of them and shared a table with many of them. They are as wonderfully real people as they are brilliant educators who are shaping the future of education more profoundly than 90% of the conference presenters. They actively connect educators in ways that a sit-and-get conference never will. The conversations, the stories, the experiences, the visions they have for education cannot be unheard. Sitting at the table listening to them share enhanced my vision of education in a way that I can never function again in some of the ways I have in the past.

Even more profound was the random conversation I had with a gentleman at the bar where I stopped with some other conference goers prior to retiring to my hotel room for the night. He had nothing to do with education (he would have been one of my nightmare students had he gone to my school) yet he built a successful, by any definition, career without the help of any higher education. Because of his success, he was able to walk away from that career and now is doing the things he enjoys doing because he has the means to do them. He refers to himself as a technologist. I refer to myself as an educator (with a bit of tech-geek thrown in). I cannot say how much of an educator he understands himself to be. Throughout our conversation, I realized he knows things about education I do not understand and that I know things I want technology to do for me that programmers do not understand. According to his philosophy of technology all the things I want technology to do are quite possible. I had to wonder if my philosophy of education is flexible enough to accommodate the things he understands. As much as I learned from the professional educators, I was more inspired by the professional technologist. Things are possible in education that even professional educators do not yet imagine.

I must confess that I have been somewhat of an educational snob. I welcome input and knowledge from other educators. I resent business people (legislators) input on education. I could always find a flaw in their thinking with ample educational research to disprove what they claim. The random conversation with a technologist who is as passionate about his craft as I am about mine forced me to rethink who it is that I learn from. Do I only want to have educators with a Master’s degree or higher in my Twitter feed?

If I limit my focus, I am as guilty as the major educational organizations who only focus on best-selling authors for keynote speakers and session presenters. In one position I held  was tasked with bringing in presenters for professional development who addressed a specific program the district had implemented. The more I read resumes, the more I realized how incestuously the connections between the experts was. Common backgrounds appeared in the resume. Common affiliations with universities and professional organizations stood out. I realized that everyone I was considering knew everyone else I was considering. There are vast opportunities outside the educational community for learning about education.

Those thoughts were reinforced the next morning when I shared a table in the overflow area with a school superintendent who teaches a leadership course for his local university. Because the course focuses on leadership, not educational leadership, his students  have included employees of Fortune 500 companies, small business owners, educators, and military personnel. He affirmed my belief that the conversation was richer with the diversity of perspectives. In the next term, only educators have registered for the class and he is concerned about the shifts he has to make in presenting the curriculum. The variety that comes from a mixed classroom shifts the quantity of knowledge the participants bring.

While at a conference, and in my hours online from home, I prefer the company of others with that divergent perspective an un-common experiences to hearing the voices of my co-workers. That does not mean I do not value the input and expertise of my peers. Because of our shared experience we often understand that experience better than anyone else. Even though we are housed in the same building, just as eyewitnesses to a car crash have a different perspective depending on which corner they were standing, so do the staff with whom I work. From the classroom, to the specialist, to adminstration, we see each situation through our own unique lens. Each one brings powerful knowledge to solving the ongoing challenges we face.

As I continue to build my personal learning network, I keep finding valuable new sources that inform me in ways I did not expect. That is the power of a PLN - as much as the collection of experts from whom to glean gems of wisdom- it is an opening of one’s own mind to new ideas. One idea from the conference has so dwelt in my mind that I am determined to see it to fruition though I do not even know the first step to take - but I know people who do! With an open mind and the expertise to help me through, I look forward to fulfilling the dream. That is the kind of PLN I want.

Rope

        

         “The knot at the end of the rope is not for hanging onto but for untying so you can reach just a little bit farther.”  I typed that into the notes function on my phone as I was in the middle of the third crisis in four days with a third close friend. It seemed the lives of everyone around me were falling apart and I did not know how much more I could handle, yet in the middle of each crisis, I found the way to go just a little bit farther and handle the additional challenge lying before us.

         I consider it a blessing that my friends (and my students) trust me enough to come to me whenever life goes awry.

         I find it terrifying that sometimes they tell me months later that something I said to them really stuck with them. (“What did I say?” I wonder, and “Is it something I would stand by today?”)

         The idea of the knot and continued service to others has been on my mind since the week in which I confronted the many crises as the months since then have continued to be filled with illness and deaths of people close to me. Recently, in my Bible study, I revisited the passage in 1 Corinthians that discusses gifts (Chapter 12) and have tried to figure out which one(s) of them applies to me. When my friends face a crisis, although sometimes overwhelmed by the immensity of immediate situation, I draw strength in providing assistance/comfort: instead of being drained, I am energized. To experience such stamina must be some kind of gift though I have a hard time identifying it in Pauline terms.

         In the midst of thinking about all of this, someone, after sharing concerns with me, apologized for making me worry about them. I tried to share with the person that the concern I have as a caregiver is not the same as worry and that it energizes me. At best, the explanation fumbled about the topic. I do not completely understand how it works much less possess enough understanding to explain it to anyone else.

         I am certainly not the only one around with this this gift. I work with a team of people who daily demonstrate their ability to work in the most challenging situations. Actually, everyone I know who successfully works in a Title 1 school maintains this gift. Not one of those people I know considers themselves special; they see the work as a calling and as vital to their lives as breathing. To work in the environment without being able to rejuvenate from negotiating challenging situations is too exhausting to continue the work for many years.

         My frustration never comes from the students with whom I work. Frustration comes from the politicians, media, and community who fail to see the challenges we face because we are dealing with real, vulnerable people. Even some so-called allies in education reform do not recognize that we are dealing with people not products. Those outside education often look for a cookie cutter product walking across the stage despite, very often, having defied the system to create their own path to success.

         Regardless of the perceptions of the politicians, media, and community, I am resolute in my determination to do the best I can do for every student who crosses my path. It is my educator gospel. With the correct degree of compassion and passion I can continue to survive the challenges that come from working with real people. My students, also, will survive outside the classroom.

         Resiliency is not just about me thriving when others share their difficult times with me. Resiliency means that they do are surviving through their hard times. Daily I find something amazing about my students that the rest of the world may find mundane. That is what brings me back to school every day.

         And I keep untying knots.

The Right One

         For the last eight years, every job I have had has been paid through grant funding.  As a result, I have changed jobs every two years as the grant funds reached their end. I am again in year-two and have started updating my resume because, once again, the grant funds are ending. It has become almost routine for me to be on some form of job search.

         My friends all respond with shock and dismay when it becomes official that my job is going away. I do not always react with ecstatic joy when I find out there are no local funds for my job, but I do go into the job with my eyes fully open, so I am never shocked when the conversation comes. Changing jobs every two years is not my ideal, but it has given me experiences I never would have had if I had maintained a traditional career track.

         As much as I have learned and gained in the last eight years, I want to settle into a position for a longer period of time in order to fully apply the many things I have learned to the position. Contrary to what non-educators may think, making systemic change at any level of school takes a full three to five years. I want that challenge.

         Not every person is right for every position. The key to systemic success is finding the best fit in a position. There are positions open on my current campus, but I do not fit the profile of the person who would be most effective in that position. No matter how much I love the campus and am passionate about the students and staff, I do not have the skill-set that the position needs to be most successful. My love for the campus and passion for the students and staff would rather see the best person have the job as much as I would like to remain there. Education works best when the correct person is in the position for which they are best suited.

         By working grant-funded positions, I have had the fortune of changing jobs every two years and building a unique skill-set. As I have searched for jobs (and LinkedIn makes suggestions) I have found campus level jobs, central administration jobs, and jobs across the spectrum in corporate education (testing companies, textbook companies, and professional development providers). My challenge is finding the right position and getting it. I am going to miss my current position, but I look forward to the next opportunity that awaits me.