Life-Fit #Culturize

        After a lot of thought at the start of this calendar year, I arrived at my word of the year being "balance". Many of my posts have talked about my pursuit of finding this both in my professional and personal life. Recently, about a half-hour ago to be exact, I finished reading Culturize by Jimmy Casas, who is an educational leader and consultant I have long admired. In his book, he discussed the idea that we should be seeking to be "life-fit" as opposed to finding balance. His rationale was that he thought balance had a negative connontation to it, where-as life-fit challenged us to accept our current realities and everyone's unique situations at different points in their lives. He provided several examples of this that really resonated with me as I reflected on the last several weeks and months of the school year that were a true whirlwind in the way that only 2020 could be explained (a year certainly not like any other). Some of the the examples he provided talked about accepting people's life situations, such as those that have children and families or those that are alone, and how they are able to give different amounts of themselves to their work just because of their life situations. COVID-19 certainly gave new meaning to this and I believe it will continue to as we seek to figure out this summer how we get back to school in the fall and what exactly that looks like because we have a myriad of life-fits to balance out and each stakeholders certainly have much to consider whether it be the teacher who has young children at home and would need to pay for daycare services if their own childs district does not go back at the same times we do or a teacher who has an elderly parent that they need to care for so they can't take the risk of being exposed to COVID-19 from other students in the building or our students with social and emotional concerns that have had significant challenges engaging with eLearning or our staff that are living alone and having so many challenges because they miss being around our students. All of these situations are equally important to consider as educational leaders and none are situations we have ever had to think about in the past in the same ways we now have to consider them. 

       Many are beyond overwhelmed by the task ahead of us in planning to get back to school but I am excited about it, excited to think that we might learn from some of our experiences and make some changes. Culturize helped me, as I need at the end of every school year, to reflect on my growth and where I am currently in my own narrative as an educator, it provided me with some points to think about where I have grown over the past several years as an assistant principal and to think about where the next levels of my growth could and should be.  Near the end of the book Casa's wrote " we cannot allow ourselves to live in a world that accepts status quo as our standard", I believe this to be true amid all that is going on around this whether we are talking about the COVID-19 pandemic or the brutal murder of George Floyd and the need for us to re-examine social justice in our country and world. 

"What if 2020 isn't cancelled? 

What if 2020 is the year we've been waiting for? 

A year so uncomfortable, so painful, so scary, so raw--

that it finally forces us to grow. 

A year that screams so loud, finally awakening us 

from our ignorant slumber. 

A year we finally accept the need for change. 

Declare change. Work for change. Become the change. 

A year we finally band together, instead of 

pushing each other further apart. 

2020 isn't cancelled, but rather

the most important year of them all." --Leslie Dwight 

   So as I do after every professional book that I read, I want to take some time to discuss here how this book fits in with my overall philosophy and where I will use it to continue to grow and fail forward by outlining some of the important points made at the end of the text where Casas' points out that we cannot let failure define our work and that we have to continue to have relationships define the work that we do by empowering each other to make a positive impact on every student and challenging our own beliefs about students and staff that are troubled or awfulizers as he refers to them by thinking of this as a place to initiate a conversation. Recently, I have begun to see this as we have had to make some challenging decision in our eLearning environment with some of our leadership team and needed to have many of these conversations with them, I have found myself much preferring to have smaller conversations as opposed to larger group conversations because I find that the awfulizers often dominate these discussions and make them about them and then make the culture of our school seem toxic which I don't believe that it is. I actually believe quite the opposite as many and more, and more teachers have reached out to me during the pandemic as we have reconnected either through the new normal project or working through student situations to tell me personally that they don't agree with the so-called instructional leaders in our school. Which leads to another keypoint in this book about the idea that every person in the school contributes to the culture and it is not just the leadership team or the administration but every single teacher and student that leads to the culture of a school, even when it is online. Often their are the stated leaders in the school that hold the titles but then their are the true leaders that continue to find ways forward and don't seek out titles or accalades for what they do, instead they value and spend their time building relationships with students and lessons that are meaningful and engage students by meeting them where they are which they are better able to do because of their relationships and understanding of today's students. A learning I had from this book and something I would like to reflect on and consider how I can do better in the future is how to use the historical knowledge of some of our more veteran leaders or teachers and empower them and their views to lead in different initiatives. I often find myself going to the same people when we need to get something done and I would like to continue to widen my reach here which I believe that I started to do with the help of the new normal team but would like to continue to expand and think more deeply about in the future so that I can ensure with all my progressive beliefs that I am being respectful and valuing the history of our school. In my first few years as an assistant principal I did a lot of learning in this realm and have really begun to try and explore this part of my practice this year. In the future, I would like to find ways to better listen to them and what they are not saying, ask questions about their beliefs and have them walk away from our conversations feeling more empowered to build the culture of our school. While I have tremendous respect for their views, I find that I listen and easily dismiss them as being about compliance and not engagement and that they often concern me instead of looking at them as a point of entry for a conversation to cultivate an understanding of this viewpoint and why this is so heavily valued. I can grow from a better understanding of opposing views and I owe it to our schools stakeholders to do that. 

    The last paragraph of the book will have a lasting impact on me, where Casas' talked about the lasting impact educators have on stakeholders and in particular on students, I like most educators think of a few students that I am currently championing for and thought about one of them throughout reading this book, as the cards are stacked against this student and I refuse to stop fighting for him. I know he is worth it and in the words of Ghandi I will always "be the change you wish to see in the world" because there is no greater calling than that of an educator, that I will always believe and that is why I dedicate so much time to my own continued professional growth and practice as an educator because I always want to seek to be better for everyone that I serve both now and in the future. As Casas' ended his book: 

"Lead with passion. 

Live with purpose. 

Love with pride. 

It's your choice how you want to live each day!" 

Be well. Thank you for an excellent and inspiring end of the school year read @jimmycasas