Bad News.......

Six months ago, my sister-in-law called me and told me my Dad had been in a wreck. That’s all she knew. Within 10 minutes I had my overnight bag in the car and was heading towards I-26. On my way to my hometown, my brother called to say that my Dad had been hit head on by a drunk driver. He was hurt bad but my brother had talked with him and I felt better. Our small-town hospital was ill-equipped to handle his injuries and they were flying him to a trauma center in Columbia. I waited when I arrived in Columbia for my brother to call and tell me which hospital to make camp. He called to tell me that the weather was too bad and the helicopter would have to go to Charleston instead of Columbia. I got back on the road and headed down I-26 towards Charleston. About 5 miles before the hospital exit, my brother texted and asked how much longer I would be. That was my first clue. About 2 minutes later, my sister texted me and asked if my husband was with me. That was my second clue. When I arrived at the ER, I told the registration desk who I was and who my father was and the attendant looked at me with such sad tenderness. That was my third clue. A lady dressed in an all-black suit asked me to join my family in a little room off the ER. This was no clue. This was reality. There in that room, the room I had been escorted into by this chaplain, I found my brother and sister-in-law and my uncle. They were waiting on me to tell me that my father had succumb to the injuries from the car accident upon his arrival in Charleston.    There are so many things from that night I remember, but one thing that I remember the most was the chaplain.

Her demeanor was amazing. She was there but she wasn’t pushy. She answered questions but she put no demands on my family. She explained kindly. She used words we understood rather than the “big” words of the medical staff. She had caring eyes. She wasn’t judging our grief. She helped my brother and me as we were led into the room with our father’s lifeless body. She quietly handed me tissue. She kindly suggested that I take my Dad’s Clemson ring and his wedding band... She reassured me it was okay to take them off as if she knew he never took them off. In fact, in 45 years, I’d never seen him not wearing those rings. She helped me wordlessly when I couldn’t do it alone. She was strength when we were weak.  I think about her often. I wonder how many times a week- maybe even a day- that she must sit with other families. How many boxes of tissue does she go through in a week in that magic black bag of hers. How many families has she prayed with and for? Delivering news like that every day must be hard for her, I would think?

Just the other day, she crossed my mind again. She gives terrible news to families. She is there when they hurt. She is there when they don’t understand. She is there when they are angry. She is there when they’re heartbroken. I thought of this chaplain because I was in a meeting with a parent. We were having to tell this parent that his son was behind where he should be. We were having to tell him that his son had not gotten the foundational skills necessary to be successful YET!  This parent was sad. This parent was upset at what had happened in the years before this year (or what had not happened). This parent felt like a failure. While we, as the practicing educators, had to give the bad news, we also had to support that parent through it also. This parent had many of the same emotions that that chaplain sees every day.

The difference between us and that chaplain is a decision to share.  That chaplain is forced to have difficult conversations with families. We have a choice. Well, sort of. It would be safe to say, as a practicing educator, that if we do not have difficult conversations with parents that we are committing educational malpractice. No one enjoys difficult conversations. No one wakes up in the morning and ask themselves, “Who can I disappoint, dishearten, upset, anger, sadden today?” Seriously none of us do, but it must happen. We must be honest with parents. They deserve to know the truth. They deserve to know where their student is and how they can help.

As I think about that chaplain, I often wonder how long she trained for her job. I wonder if she practiced. I wonder if she shadowed others. I wonder if she worked alongside a mentor before she did it alone. I wonder if she read books. I wonder if she was led to this work because of her own experiences. I wonder if she worries about how she will behave in these situations and I wonder if she reflects afterwards. While death and academic difficulties are not anywhere near the same thing. I would think the delivery of the news is very similar. We are honest. We are sincere. We are kind. We don’t judge, we understand. We aren’t pushy. We reassure. We are strong. But most of all-we share the truth and we don’t hide from it. It is what our students deserve. 

Effort=Results

I’ve made it no secret that I struggle with my weight. It’s part DNA, part my lifestyle- I literally need a 12 step program for pasta addiction.  Yet, I continue to exercise and continue to try to eat better. And with a hope and a prayer maybe, just maybe, one day, I’ll be the size and health I want to be.  Because I go to the gym before the chickens wake up, I am pretty much on my own at the gym. My gym has a large selection of cardio machines. Each morning, I spend ½ hour either walk/running or on the elliptical and then spend another bit of time in a weight circuit. This weight circuit is designed by the gym to be done in ½ hour with work on legs, arms, and abs.  I was a little frustrated with the fact that I do this circuit at least 3 times (if not 4) a week and see little results. I was lamenting this to my husband the other morning, when he asked me about the weights that I use. I started explaining to him what I use and he seemed impressed with the heaviness of the weights. He then asked me how long I had been using the same weight on the machines and I told him that I was using the same weight since I started the ½ hour circuit about a year ago.  He then laughed and explained that my lack of increasing my weights was my problem. I was using the same old weight every day and didn’t challenge my body by going further every couple of weeks by increasing the weights.  He then made me really mad by stating, “Mediocre efforts produces mediocre results.” Uggg…..Know it all!   

When he gave me this great advice, I started thinking about a conversation I had just had with one of our teachers. She came to see me last week. She was a little downtrodden. She was discussing a situation with a student that honestly seemed minor-but I listened anyway. Call it mother’s intuition or maybe that I’ve been doing this too long, but I finally asked, “So what’s really bothering you?”  That’s when she started to share some real failures in her classroom that day. We’ve all had those days. Heck, sometimes I have those weeks.

As I do with many of these types of meetings, I started asking questions. You see, I may be “principal” but that doesn’t mean that I know more than our teachers-it just means I get more emails. Many times teachers know the answers to their own questions. Teachers are experts.  I asked one question that she answered with some delay. I asked her how it had gone last year when she had done her groups in the way that had failed on this day. After not answering the question, she answered by stating that she was trying something new and it hadn’t gone well. I asked her why she had changed the way she did it last year. She then started discussing her data from last year, what she had learned from a new teacher last year, and about a book she had read this summer. All of those things made her realize that she needed to try things a little bit differently. We talked some more and discussed some things that could make it better the next day. I checked up on her at the end of the next day and just as I thought, she had a much better day-actually a great day!

Unlike the teacher I just mentioned, I was playing it safe. At the gym, I wasn’t pushing myself. I wasn’t working harder every day. I started and continued the same thing day after day after day after day. And eventually the results stopped. So for the last week, I started upping the weights. The first day was a complete failure. I upped them too much, couldn’t do what I needed to do, ran out of time and didn’t finish. I really left feeling worse than I had in a long time. Sunday morning, I could hardly walk from the car to the church. I was so sore.  But then this morning came, and I felt great. I kept working through the pain and almost skipped to my car because I felt so accomplished.

You see, if you haven’t failed in your class lately, you probably aren’t pushing yourself hard enough. You are probably playing it safe and doing what you’ve always done-maybe it seems easy. Maybe it seems safe. Maybe it seems less hard.  But I can assure you that “safe” lessons are a recipe for mediocrity- AT BEST.  And as my husband so lovingly pointed out…“Mediocre efforts produces mediocre results.” And our kids don’t deserve mediocrity. 

You can be ANYTHING........

I have a very dear friend who grew up amazingly different than I did. Not only geographically did we grow up different, but we were raised by two extremely different families. My parents were married six months shy of 50 years before my Mom’s death. Her parents divorced when she was 2 leaving her an only child compared to me having 2 siblings. Her mother worked full time as an accountant in a huge cooperation. My mom worked part time jobs when I was little and only went to full time employment when my younger brother was around 10.  She attended church at Christmas and Easter while I was in church every time the doors were unlocked. She was taught a woman was equal to a man while my mother taught me that the man was the head of the household and while you have a voice, the husband ultimately was responsible for major family decisions.

Now, the way I’ve described this makes it sound as if one of us had it better than the other. This is not the case. I adore this friend. She is a 2^nd sister to me. I adore her mother. In fact, when my own mother passed away, my friend’s Mom was the 2^nd person I called.  Even with our crazy different backgrounds, we’ve ended up living relatively similar adult lives. We both married in our mid 20s, are still married, had 2 children, are both educators, and are both extremely busy with our kids, our churches, our careers, and our passions.  I was talking with her late one night last week. She was down. She was extremely stressed out. She was moved into a new position in her company with a not so friendly boss, her youngest son is giving her some minor teenage trouble, her husband received a promotion and it is requiring a lot of travel, she gives and gives at her church, she is a den Mom, her mom’s health is declining and she is her caregiver, and her husband’s very troubled brother has moved into their garage apartment.  I listened to her vent for several minutes and I asked her why she felt the need to do it all.

She laughed and said, “I am the daughter of a feminist.” We were taught that. I listened some more while thinking about this feminist thing. Most of my friends are the first-generation daughters of the feminist movement. This movement taught woman that we could be anything we wanted to be. But as I listened to my friend, my friend who was raised by a real feminist, I realized something. The feminist movement taught us we could do anything, but I am afraid the message we heard was we must do everything.

I could not help but think about our work here at school.  (Sorry to the men who work in our schools, this may be message not intended for you) Men tend to do this better than we women, but it may help you understand us a little better. We stress ourselves out by trying to do it all when in fact what we tend to do is do none of it well.  I was in a meeting with a teacher last week who discussed her math lesson. She talked about the manipulatives, the worksheet, the video, the timer, the game she’d created, and the cool exit slip. What she failed to mention was when she was teaching the content. She was so focused on doing everything-manipulatives, technology, independent practice, closing the lesson that she forgot the most important part-teaching! 

Remember-at the end of the day-what is most important-build relationships with your students. Build their trust, build their confidence, built their character. Teach them. Yes, be innovative, yes teach like your hair is on fire, but don’t forget to TEACH them. And ask for help. If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.   Stop trying to be everything and be great at the one thing that we went into this job for-TEACHING.  Focus relentlessly on being the best teacher your students ever had or ever will have.  Does this mean that your bulletin board may not get changed every month or even this quarter? Does this mean your weekly newsletter will not be fancy? Does this mean your lesson plans may be sloppy? Does this mean you may be late turning in your SLO (shhhh!!!)? 

You know my friend’s Mom taught her correctly. You can be anything you want to be? So why not choose to be the best teacher your children have ever or will ever have?