A new decade...Giving each other and ourselves GRACE

     August flew by and we are already 7 days into September.... not quite sure how that happened! I had a big birthday in August... you know one of those decade birthdays where typically I find myself reflecting on where I am and where I want to go. This one happened so fast that I didn't have time do any reflecting, I even felt guilty for the few hours I took away to be with my family on the actual day of my birthday. The post I wrote on facebook and instagram to thank people for their birthday messages was "thank you to everyone who reached out today to wish me a Happy Birthday. I am thankful for every one of you. Truthfully, I haven't had much (if any) time to think about this upcoming decade but I am excited for whatever adventures are in store....this last one will be hard to beat but I know this next one will be the best one yet. Tomorrow starts a new school year...a different kind of school year, one that I believe will test us all whether student, parent, teacher, educator, administrator or school board member. I always think any challenge is an opportunity for us to be reborn and education has been in need of an evolution for some time. This was not exactly what I had in mind but it is the deck of cards we have all been dealt, health & wellness must be our #1 priority. I had one wish today as I blew out the candles...let's all give each other some grace as we work though these challenges together. #wegotthis". I wrote all that before our staff came back and today, the day before 1/2 our students return to the school tomorrow (other than those who are opting to stay remote), I circle around to the need for everyone to show each other and themselves GRACE. This is REALLY hard work right now but there are solutions and a need for teamwork at all levels of every organization. The answers are not always what we want to hear and sometimes we are making things more complex then they have to be because we want to be our best selves in the environment we find ourselves that is so uncomfortable for ALL of us. We are often our own worst critics, so giving ourselves grace and understanding that the perfection we are striving for doesn't actually exist right now is A OK. 

I am absolutely in awe of our teachers and how they are working through the never ending challenges right now. WHY? Because teachers are full of passion and love for what they do every day for every student. Our teachers pushed themselves relentlessly this spring when we went to remote learning seemingly overnight. They learned new technologies, were adaptable to a learning environment that was entirely unfamiliar and worked endless hours supporting each other in their PLCs. Many had their own children at home and somehow supported their own children and all the students they had. I watched both of my siblings do this in their own homes and was in awe of them and the positivity they showed throughout. For my sister, she got six months at the beginning of the twins lives to be home with them, a gift I think she will always be thankful for because she never would have been able to stay home with them that long otherwise. It was hard for her as she put them in daycare for the first time last week as she headed back to work as a PE teacher in a nearby town. We were beyond fortunate in that my mom was able to stay home with us as we grew up so I know it has been extra challenging for both of my siblings not to be able to have one parent stay at home with their children. Both tell me what a gift this time has been to them and their families. 

Everyone has had challenges during the pandemic. I don't know a single person who is well right now but how we chose to overcome them is where people differ. I also have realized it is not my place to judge other people or to tell them what is right and/or wrong. I found myself in tears a few days into our teachers being back on the drive home because we had a really challenging meeting with our staff and then we had a meeting with our student government kiddos and I was absolutely torn. Our kids just want to be back in school with their teachers, they miss them and love them. They saw how relentless our staff worked for them this spring and they are still so thankful for this, they wanted teachers to know that it's the kindness and connections to them that they are craving, the need to get back to some normalcy learning about their teachers area of passion. They do not expect perfection, they knew that wasn't a fair expectation right now and they were more than willing to help them problem solve (or fail forward) and work in this new learning environment as a team. What a beautiful thing I thought to myself as I listened to them, and I found myself wanting to go back to the classroom remembering how that felt. As an administrator your students are the staff that you work for and adults are very different types of learners than our students are. They are professionals with many degrees and always need to be treated that way. 

So what has my biggest challenge been during this time? While I wish I could say my biggest challenge was work and figuring out a way through all of this or that I didn't get to go to Grand Cayman and Egypt this year which is how I planned to celebrate the decade. If you knew how much I love to travel, you would understand that this has been a true challenge for me but I am beyond grateful for all the time I have had at home with my Moe man & my brother Troy who stayed with us. I am not entirely sure how I am supposed to leave Moe home tomorrow for a whole day of school (I have been bringing him to work as our resident therapy dog for everyone which can't continue when the kids come back tomorrow). My biggest challenge came after what was probably my favorite day of the year, the day my sister finally was able to have my entire close knit family over to her house. It was a glorious day as none of us had seen each other in nearly 3 months at that point other than on Zoom and Google Meets calls. We didn't attempt to spend Easter together or any other holidays because of my little nieces and my 90+ year old grandparents. I even brought Moe to meet my little nieces and my brother brought his two kids over too so we were all absolutely thrilled because family is so important to the DiPreta clan. My cousin came up from Rhode Island with her daughter and I don't think I will ever remember feeling happier than I did that day having everyone together like that. What happened the following day crushed me and still hurts to talk and think about. My mom text me midway through the day saying she might need someone to take her to the emergency room. My immediate response was is that absolutely necessary? She should avoid going to the hospital and exposing herself if at all possible. She was waiting to hear back from her doctor after having a panic attack and not feeling stable at all. My aunt ended up taking her later that day and what followed was her being admitted to a nearby hospital for a 20+ day stay to try and stabilize her. We weren't able to talk to and/or see my mom for that entire time period, the only person she would call was my aunt. I wasn't sure if she was angry with me and my sister & brother were absolutely crushed too, as were my grandparents. I felt we had so much to be grateful and thankful for in our lives, no one in our family had gotten sick but that is the thing about mental illness, it doesn't always take something big to trigger it. When we asked we were told that she was not stable enough to talk to all of us so she was choosing to not speak to any of us. You can guess that I threw myself even harder into my work and going to the gym which re-opened at some point during that time just to not think about how afraid I was for her and how much I just wanted my mom back because I knew when she came out they would have her on all kinds of medication so she wouldn't be the mom I grew up with. Sadly, this wasn't the first time in my life I had this experience with her and last time was just absolutely devastating on so many levels. I told my principal but really didn't tell many other people, I can't even believe I am writing this here and going to share this but what I realize is that we all have challenges that we handle in different ways. While this devastated me, I know some would say how fortunate I am to still have my mom and I am thankful that I have her, believe me. She isn't the same person though and only people who have mental illness in their family really understand this. I am often afraid that either myself or one of my siblings will suffer from similar mental health issues and people just don't understand this the way they understand other disabilities like my brother Troy's autism. My mom has been home for some time now and she is not the same as she was before, she came on my birthday and I gave her the flowers I give her every year to thank her for being my mom and giving me life but the joy in her is gone for now thanks to all the medication she is on. So where does that leave me and my siblings...

How will I choose to live this next decade? I tried to handle my biggest challenge with grace and I plan to live the next decade showing my nieces and nephew that giving each other and ourselves grace is always the right answer no matter the situation or how we feel about anything and everything. Often people make decisions that differ from what we would choose but I believe that we have to trust them and that they may have more information than we do. Second guessing everything in life is no way to live happily. Reading Michelle Obama's book " Becoming" right now, reminds me of this often. Yesterday I read the chapter where she talked about how someone took one part of a speech she gave and spliced it into something else entirely that circulated far and wide. They took what she said right out of context and made it into something else entirely. You see, one thing I have learned as an assistant principal, is you often hear the same story from two people as two entirely different stories because each and every one of us brings to each situation a ton of our own history, our own beliefs and our own perspective on what occurred and what the outcome should be. Most often, I will tell you that one is not right and the other wrong, they just see the world differently from their perspective. 

    I will leave you with this, a podcast from George Couros who I believe is my spirit animal in the world of education. I have been taking his course on Developing the Innovator's Mindset Through Remote, Face-to-Face and Blended Learning. He has been a consistent inspiration to me throughout this time and I was a huge fan of his books before, I even did a book study with teachers in my school last year on his co-authored book "Innovate Inside the Box" but his message in this podcast really resonated with me as I think about the unusual school year we are about to have and the decade I have now begun. I wish you all a school year filled with GRACE