2021- 2022 Lessons in leadership

 This school year has by far been the most challenging of my career. After the past two school years, I thought we might begin to move forward in education. We have not, we have fallen back to old structures and patterns as the chicken soup we have craved during times of uncertainty. 

Teachers have shown up everyday relentlessly trying to close learning gaps and help to support students understand again what being a good student looks like and perhaps more importantly prepare them to be good people and citizens of the world. Teachers are tired and deserve the summer break more this year than ever. The work has been hard and yet we have had some huge successes. Watching the Class of 2022 walk across the stage yesterday into their future reminded me once again why being in education is the right work, right now. 

While the discipline matters with students this year have been seemingly never ending and complex with multiple perspectives that are not right or wrong, just different, it has been harder than ever before to get people to come together and respect these differences. I have seen the adults involved have a hard time seeing other perspectives and becoming more black and white in their own thinking, forgetting about the growth and our responsibility to help our youth appreciate each other as human beings and people of the world. Perhaps this is why I have always loved traveling and diving into other cultures and perspectives across the world. There is not always right and wrong, black or white. The adults need to model this behavior and yet I know we too are struggling and have struggled through the pandemic, as well. The work has been hard and yet it has been meaningful and important. 

Meeting with each teacher at the end of the school year in the departments that I oversee including science, special education and intervention is always a highlight for me but perhaps this year more than ever. I have LOVED working with the science department and have felt a renewed focus on my why in education in this work with these wonderful teachers. I always try and reflect on the themes of these meetings as I plan for how to best support teachers (and thus students) in the upcoming school year. I was struck by how many of them, completely unsolicited by me, took time at the end of their meetings to genuinely thank me for my leadership, suggestions for improvement and support of their work. Teachers consistently shared what made them feel supported is my investment in them and their continued growth as a professional while also caring genuinely about them as people. They shared that my presence in PLC (we call them IETs), book studies I recommended, time in their classrooms, and most importantly time just getting to know them as people beyond their professional roles as teachers is what made the difference for them this year. The reason I want to return to this work and my school next year is because of how meaningful hearing this feedback was to me and because I know the work has just begun. I can now see the improvements I have been able to make with intervention and yet I still know their is work to be done here but I feel I owe it to the science department that I have just begun working with this year. Special education is in great hands with my two amazing colleagues and I LOVE this work and partnership, as well. 

I look back to where I was a year ago as the school year ended and I never felt more deflated, unvalued and unappreciated in my role. I sought feedback from a few people I trust and took that feedback to heart to try and come back stronger from this huge setback. I would be very honest and say that most days this school year, I had a hard time walking through the front door of the school knowing what I felt I had been through and forgetting the bigger picture and my why of this work. Though the students were not my own that walked across the stage yesterday, thus my impact was minimal on them, what they shared in their speeches really hit home on many of my core beliefs. 

At the end of each year and everyday, we must remember that we are in this work together for the betterment of society, to make the world a better place. It’s about being kind, seeing other perspectives and as I recently read in Wolfpack, being a true team player, cheerleader especially when your on the sidelines and leader for everyone. Remembering that I am the wolf. For me, right now, it’s especially about the girls who need to see women in leadership lead and cheer women on. 

I hope that every educator takes the time this summer to reflect, reboot and come back in the late summer remembering their why. Feel free to share yours with me in the comments below.