Perspective

      In my last post I wrote about two tragedies that our school community had during this pandemic we are struggling to live through and getting exhausted from having to stay apart and not being able to comfort each other in our time of need. It has been challenging to watch everyone experience this time in our lives and has brought out the worst in so many of us and the best in so few of us. It has been terribly hard to watch and live through. I keep wondering when this will all end? What will be the new normal when this is all over? How do we come to terms with this new normal and move beyond the normal of before the pandemic? 

     I finally finished reading Becoming today by Michelle Obama and realized that I was taking my time finishing the book mostly because I didn't want to finish the book, I felt like I was learning so much about myself as I was reading the book. Learning about Michelle and her story of coming from nothing, her struggles as a black person in America and as a woman were something I could relate on some level to at various points in my life. I often realize in my line of work that you perspective is everything and being a woman in leadership is not easy, especially when you are the youngest one on your team and work in a town with a lot of wealth and where all other members of your team are men. I should be clear in sharing that I may work with the nicest group of men you will ever meet but still it is not easy on a daily basis and boy (no pun intended) do I see the world differently then they do. It never ceases to amaze me the big picture thinking they have and the details that they so easily miss without meaning to. 

    About a week ago, our superintendent asked me to sit on a panel for a group of aspiring administrators which I was thrilled to do and offer my insights as a female in the field. I learned a lot in the hour and half panel from my colleagues that participated and were in two different schools that again made me think about perspective particularly during this difficult time and how much we as leaders have to double down on listening to our constituents who have such varied perspectives right now. Our staff are working so hard to provide meaningful learning experiences for students while learning a new learning management system. I think they are spending too much time on the new learning management system and not enough time reflecting on effective teaching and learning in the hybrid but that is my own perspective from afar. Our parents want students in school full-time, or I should say some of them do, and they are concerned about the loss of learning during this challenging time in all of our lives but they are forgetting that no one is really well right now and able to retain information in the same way because our mental health is not well and everyone in the country is living through this pandemic, so our students are not behind others in the nation, and besides that an education is the cumulation of 13 years in public schools, not 1-2 years so we will have time to make some of this up. I am worried about my seniors and the loss of their senior activities but will say that they are just so thrilled to be able to be in school a few days a week with their friends that they seem to be able to put this aside more than some of their parents can. Other parents, are afraid and either are not sending their kids to school or like the hybrid model that we currently have. Our students are so adaptable, they amaze me and blow me a way with how they have been able to manage through this time. Besides the pandemic and the flux of our learning model, learning management system and now 3 tragedies (yes, there has been another one), they continue to adapt to everything our administration and teachers throw at them as we continue to pivot and adapt to these trying times. 

    As Michelle shared in the final pages of her book as she walked away from the white house, I believe education is the ticket to a better future for all of us and I truly hope that we take away finding that some systems and structures that work better for education than the archaic structures of the 18th century school house that we still utilized before the pandemic. SEL and teaching our students and staff to self care must be at the core of this work as our world has shifted and I am certain it will never be the same again. I do hope as I end this blog post that unlike at the end of Michelle's book, the outcome of this next election will be more positive and America will find itself reborn to be the America that I remember and was proud to tell people I was from when I travelled before.