By the way...I do drink too much coffee

I am going to admit it. Someone hurt my feelings last week. Bad.  Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I have car duty.  On Tuesday and Thursdays, I am inside in the café monitoring breakfast. This is very strategic. It is important that I am outside. I cannot tell you how much I learn at carpool. Yet, I learn so much about students from being at breakfast as well and also build relationships with students during this time.  While maybe my answer is a little different in January and February, I really enjoy car duty more than being inside during breakfast. I want to be outside greeting students every morning.

During arrival, I sing, I dance, I high five, I smile, I fist bump, I call each student by name, I speak to parents, I make jokes with kids, I actually have a great time. I am a little loud. I am a little excited. Let me be very, very clear. I don’t love car duty. I want to do car duty, but I don’t love car duty. I usually arrive at school between 6-6:30 every morning. I have a list of routine things that I must do prior to 7am each morning, but then I also organize for the day. I get ready for any meetings, I restock my mobile office, I make a list of the rooms to visit for the day or the paper work that must be handled that day, and address any emails that I didn’t get to the day prior.  I’ve worked with principals who didn’t go outside. They were enslaved to that office and left the morning duty to teachers. I never understood that. I love being with the kids.

I find it important to be excited in the morning. By nature….that is not me. I don’t, by instinct, dance, sing, jump, clap, high five, joke around. So, if I don’t like being outside, I have things to do in my office, and I don’t enjoy “acting a fool” why in the world would I do this three times a week?  I do it because our parents give us their most prized possession every single day. And don’t this kids deserve to be welcomed into THEIR school with a smile, being greeted by name, and ensuring that they have a smile on their face?  Students deserve to come into THEIR school each day knowing that we could not wait for them to come back and we are excited about what we will do together that day. 

This is where my feelings got hurt. As I was welcoming kids the other morning, a student asked me what day it was as they had just heard it on the radio on the way to school. The student told me it was “talk like a pirate day” and I started telling some cheesy pirate jokes with the kid (obviously in my best pirate impersonation). You know the jokes….what kind of socks to pirates wear? Arrrgyle.  Why do pirates go on vacation?....they need some arrrrr and arrrr?  This student, who two years ago, had to be pulled from his mom’s minivan some mornings in tears, went into school laughing and almost running to class to share my cheesy jokes with his classmates. At about this same time, an employee was walking into school and looked at me and just said, “Someone’s had some extra caffeine this morning?”

I’m not going to lie to you. This hurt my feelings. Bad. It didn’t hurt my feelings that she thinks I’m a bit too much. I get that. Sometimes many people think I am a bit too much. I really don’t care about that. Seriously. I don’t care. I find it far worse to have students disengaged in school, unhappy to arrive each day, and unsure they’re wanted. So this is why I am excited to see students each day. This is why I tell stupid jokes in a pirate voice. This is why I bother to get to know all 501 JBE students by name. This is why I dance when I clearly shouldn’t. This is why I high five, fist bump, and sing (usually off key). It didn’t hurt my feelings that someone was making fun of me. It hurt my feelings that someone on our staff didn’t understand what I’ve known since about my first year teaching. Our students deserve for us to be excited to see them each morning.

I was talking to my principal friend about it the next night and she gave me so much insight. She stated “she had to make fun of you, Meredith. She needs you to be wrong because if you’re right then she’s wrong.” Now I don’t expect anyone on this staff to sing, dance, or tell pirate jokes as they welcome their students each day. I do expect a sincere, warm welcome for each student, each morning into class each morning.  Our kids deserve that very minimal standard. 

Excellence is our standard. Those who don’t believe that, should always be silenced by those of us who do.