Year of the learner

 I recently read a post by George Couros who I write about frequently here, where he deemed this the year of the learner. Specifically, I believe he meant the year of the adult learner. Nearly a year ago, I completed my dissertation and oddly enough since finishing my edits, I have not touched it or even read it through again. I feel like I wrote it a million years ago after all that has happened in education this past year. The goal of my research study was to focus on adult learners and what professional development best meets their needs. Specifically, I focused on high school math and science teachers through a case study approach. I actually loved doing my research and even found that I loved writing my dissertation which is probably why I now write these monthly blogs to continue exploring my own evolution in thinking about education and how to best serve educators as an assistant principal. 

    I have a strong belief that instructional leadership is at the core of all our work as educational leaders and I sometimes have a difficult time understanding when others feel the work should be focused on other area's. Recently, I have found myself pretty frustrated by this because their just seems to be a landmine of other important things in this new learning environment that are distracting from this true purpose. My district invested in a full learning management system, Schoology. Our teachers have been working through so many challenges in learning how to adapt to this new platform, the hybrid classroom set-up and their own fears of being at work again. I find myself wishing I could teach again in the classroom, wishing I had the time built into my day to teach the one class that teachers often criticize and say administrators should always teach so we are in touch with what they are going through. Instead, I spend my days sorting through the 100 or so e-mails I get, sitting in endless IEP meetings because parents are concerned about things they saw when their child was at home learning that they did not know about before so they think they might need special education services when their are so many steps we should have taken before getting to this point, investigating Zoom bombings, and trying to ensure high school aged students stay 6-feet apart while now covering two lunches in the middle of everyday. The happiest moments in my day are when I get to see students in a classroom and experience the love they have for learning and the teachers sharing their expertise in new and innovative ways, working through their fears of the hybrid classroom. I wish that they would think beyond Schoology and start thinking about pedagogical, lesson and unit design shifts around standards. I wish that they would get out of their thinking about one way of doing things for all students. I actually think if we could get them to do this, they too would find the joy in what they are doing and perhaps even in reviewing students work which was admittedly one of the largest reasons I left teaching. I was absolutely exhausted from the never ending paperwork and prepping five different courses every day for eleven years. Still, I don't think I knew the exhaustion that our teachers today feel.  

    This past week, we had a really challenging week as an administrative team. Last Sunday, I learned around mid-day that our plant manager had a massive heart attack and did not make it. Our human resources director called to tell me while I was at my sisters house holding one of my nieces, I remember seeing the phone ring and saying to my sister, "that is weird, I don't understand why Maria would be calling me on a Sunday", I was kind of dumbstruck before my sister prompted me and said you better answer it once I told her who Maria was. I can't even remember what my reaction was, I was just so shocked. My fear before answering was that we had to spend another weekend doing contact tracing on another student, which we had spent the entire weekend before doing but I didn't understand why she would be the one calling to tell me. This was so much worse. They had not been able to get in touch with Bob, our principal, or our associate principal, Don, so she had kept calling all of our phones. As she explained to me what she knew, our superintendent called her back and she had to rush off the phone but asked me to try and get in touch with Bob & Don for her which I did try and do. We text a bit later and she asked me to just call Chris, our athletic director and let him know so I left Chris a voice message and asked him to call me because I couldn't leave that kind of news on his voicemail. Our admin team agreed that we would take some time to process the information and convene later that day to discuss a plan to support everyone, especially our custodial staff, some of whom I thought had been with him when he had the heart attack. I drove home soon after and by the time I got home our principal called and asked me to put together a CRISIS team Zoom, which I promptly did and then he text everyone including our secondary coordinator to tell them about it. She text me and was like what is going on? So I called and told her. We all agreed on a Sunday afternoon that we would need to really reach out to our custodial staff and Kevin, our superintendent had already sent an e-mail to tell the entire district staff. I was still trying to process the whole thing. I have not had much loss in my life, very fortunately so I don't think I really know how to process it. The next day was hard with the staff and we ended it with an optional faculty meeting to share what we knew about the situation. I felt like we handled the situation as best we could but wondered about reaching out to his family in a way that was respectful, I could also tell and was very concerned about our principal who worked most closely with him. He made an announcement to tell the students and I truly felt the entire school change after, I didn't actually hear the announcement because I was working with a student on a Zoom bombing incident so I had to tell him afterwards what had happened while we were in my office. He just said, I am so sorry, that sounds awful. While I wish I could tell you that was the worst part of the week, I'm not sure that it was. 

    Tuesday, I came to school and thought Kevin was in Bob's office to tell him about the board of education meeting and that we needed to start preparing for the board pushing us to bring all students back and away from the hybrid model so I stayed out of his office. Instead, I sat down and started in on some of my never ending e-mails. I called Greg next door to me because we all keep our doors closed now so we can take our masks off, and asked him some ridiculous question about an objective written on an IEP about a student meeting with someone from his former department for support on their post secondary planning goals. At the end of our discussion, he asked me if I knew what was going on and then he shared with me that a student of ours had passed away very suddenly last night. I told him I had no idea after I gasped and said to him why did you let me go on about that when something so much more important needs our attention right now. He said that he was just processing it because Bob had told him when they walked in from the parking lot together. I looked up the student in our student management system and said we should go check in with Bob to see what we could do to help support him and this situation. Greg said that the counselors were already working on that. I still got up and went to Bob's office, he asked Greg and me to go tell both the student who passed and his sister's first period teachers before class. I ran to do it since the five-minute bell had just rung, I had no idea what to say.... there is really no manual on this. So I pulled the teacher out of his classroom, as he was waiting just inside and greeting his students, waiting for his sister to arrive but I knew she would not be. I told him in the hallway that I had some terrible news and that I was so sorry to have to tell him now and in this way. He took a few minutes to process it and then said he wanted to go back in the room but wasn't sure what to tell his students if they started asking. I asked if he wanted support and he said no and walked back into his classroom. I walked down the hall, past the room Greg was in where the boy should have been arriving for class that morning. Greg was over on the side of the room with the teacher so I text him and he wrote back and said that the teacher was having a really hard time. So I walked straight to our mental health offices and asked two of them to please go up and help the teacher and students in that class because I thought they would need the support of experts. They were already in the midst of processing the situation with each other when I had arrived and sprung into action to be helpful. I was so grateful for their support. Greg came down and we went into our crisis team zoom meeting that morning where Bob was going through details of what we knew and how we would respond. It seemed like it was taking an hour when it actually was probably less than 5 minutes total. When he was done, he asked if anyone had anything else to add and I jumped right in and said that we had mental health staff in the room where the student had class and that the students were starting to ask questions and we didn't know what we could and could not share at this point as they had been texting us. Bob asked Greg to go up and tell the students that the student had passed away. I left and went with Greg, I didn't feel he should have to do this alone, it was all too much for all of us. So we went to the classroom and he went over to the side of the room and told the students that were in the room, one student pointed to where George would have been sitting and said but he is supposed to be right there. My heart sank and further sank when the students online started writing in the chat that they had not heard what had been said. So the teacher had to explain her hybrid set-up to us and then I had to tell the remote kids the horrible news. I watched as they gasped, cried, turned their camera's off and some sat their in fear and now knowing how to begin processing any of this. I sat there panicked thinking that I don't know who is at home with these students at home and now I am really worried about them and hearing all this information while they may be alone in the house. These things do not happen in the school where I work. We watched kids all day leave and go into their parents care. We had an outpouring of love from the community and across the district as we all mourned these two wonderful people all week. These two stories will forever be with me as I think of this pandemic. I am still somewhat numb because so much followed these events and will continue to as we mourn these incredible loses but somehow we have to find a way to move on, be kinder to one another in their honor and realize how blessed we are to have another day on earth. 

    As I watched the next segment on George's class today about risk taking, I thought a lot about some comments made at the beginning about how as leaders we need to model the risk taking that we are asking teachers to do everyday in their classrooms right now. At first, I thought geese, I am missing the mark as I am always pushing (admittedly sometimes too hard) to push the teachers I work with most closely to adapt new practices and think outside their box but am I modelling this? I thought about my fear of presenting and how I worked through this fear, first when I became an instructional leader at our school and had to get up in front of our staff and later as an administrator but further as I sought to present to audiences of educators at different conferences. Now, I love presenting at conferences and look at it as an opportunity to give back to so many that gave to me over the years and pushed my own thinking about teaching and learning for our students today. I push myself a lot in my personal life, whether it is trying a new lift or gymnastics movement at crossfit or travelling somewhere really uncomfortable.I frequently reflect on my trip to Africa and how alive I felt while I was there because I was uncomfortable every minute of every day, but I also felt completely reborn there and someday want to take my nieces and nephew there so they can experience that. I think travel is the most amazing education you can ever get. Recently, I have also been really pushing myself at crossfit, after quarantine, admittedly the competition is with myself to be able to finally do a pull-up without a band which has been my goal for quite a while now and I am getting closer. Last week, I had a huge break through though when I got upside down the right way to do a handstand push-up which is another fear I had to work my way through. Professionally though I have been questioning recently where I am pushing myself and really feeling ready for a push or something new and exciting. Perhaps it is that it has been a year since I defended my dissertation or finished writing that paper that I thought would never end. Writing this blog has certainly pushed me to share my insights and feelings on education but I can't help feeling that I am ready for something bigger right now which I know is crazy in the midst of a pandemic where the only thing that is certain is uncertainty. 

    So my goal for now is to keep exploring, keep pushing my own thinking and most importantly to find new ways to support the teachers that I work with to expand their views in ways that work best for them which is what the core of dissertation was about. Perhaps, most importantly my goal is to give grace and be kind to everyone as I am thankful for everyday that I get to push myself to take new risks and learn new things.