You Won't Find This on the State Tests

I wont lie to you, being a school principal is a difficult way to live. If you do everything right, their will still be people that hate your guts. Not to mention the long hours, ever-changing state requirements, school discipline really can ruin an entire day and you feel like you are constantly raising people’s kids. But when you put in the honest effort that it takes to do it right, there is a reward.

I have to say that I felt very rewarded lately. My student body has had the opportunity to learn outside of the textbook in a big way. I constantly try to teach these lessons but until they have an opportunity to carry them out, you really don’t know what their potential can be.

Lesson Learned #1 - You get out what you put in. Our girls basketball team just completed a season that they never expected to have. The formula for a 20 win season is generally different than what we used to get there. We had one player who has spent 80% of her life on basketball and 12 others who really had little playing experience. It goes without saying that your 80% girl would score 95% of your points but going from a 2-3 start to a 20-6 finish means that something else had to be happening. The other girls began to get better. They came in on weekends and worked extra. They began to improve their basketball IQ and when tournament time rolled in they began to shock some people. Now in one season they will not catch up to the time and effort Morgan Griffith (our 80% girl pictured above) has put in over her life but without it, they couldn't be successful as a team. Without it, our community would not have come to their feet as they did and show these kids tremendous support in their resulting 2^nd place finish at state. This brings me to the next lesson.

Lesson Learned #2 - When someone falls down, pick them up. The community has really stepped up in the time of someone’s need. One of the secretaries in the district lost her daughter to a car accident. Quickly we decided to change a school fundraiser to a benefit for her family. Now I can only tell the kids that this is what you do when there are people in need. When the community provides the lead and the kids get to see the lesson in real life, it is priceless. We have to be the reality that they see. Otherwise, less worthy individuals will do that for us. Two thumbs up to the West Frankfort community for supporting our kids.

There are many lessons to teach, but they aren't on the state tests. They don’t have x’s and y’s in them and they don’t have to be a certain amount of pages long. I’m committed to teaching them, are you?  Teachers are not the only teachers in their lives.

If the Founding Fathers Rose From Their Graves

Well I just couldn’t hold it in any longer. I will admit it, the Facebook posts got to me. Apparently because I am a Democrat, I hate guns and anybody who owns one. Obama wants to disarm America and make us all wear swastikas on our sleeves. Enough is enough folks. The truth is that democrats are not anti-gun, they are anti-murder. I personally have no problem with somebody owning a rifle to hunt with or owning a handgun to protect their home. I don’t think we should be able to own assault rifles because it’s cool and then use the second amendment as a shield to do so.

 

If the founding fathers rose from their graves, what would they see? I ask this question because that’s another shield that conservatives use when challenged on the gun control issue. I think overall they would be proud of the nation they had helped build but I think the lack of evolution in the Bill of Rights would leave them puzzled. With the exception of the third, all the items in the Bill of Rights has changed with the times compared to when the document was written. But has the second amendment really changed with the times?

If the founding fathers rose from their graves they would see a society that has changed when it comes to the way the freedoms they sought to protect have been carried out. The Supreme Court has helped guide us as we have changed, just as the framers has intended. The Bill of Rights seemed to be a top ten list of sorts for those days. The first protects religion and forms of speech and then the threat of safety to our nation at that time, i.e. British attack, native Americans, and slave uprisings. And so to that end they wrote:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

You were allowed to have guns so you could fight against any of these threats if they arose in order to keep our new nation safe. How likely is it that we will have a slave uprising in the near future? The fact is we live in different times. If the founding fathers rose they would see a new time. One that glorifies gun violence in its culture and has been increasingly turning those guns on each other. I think they would prefer to remain dead and yes, roll over in their graves.

One last thought. As a school administrator I flag many questions about whether or not schools should have armed guards at the doors or should administrators carry guns. The truth is I think we are going at it the wrong way. I was told by a police detective that of the last 30 mass shootings in this country, only seven had been in schools. As he told me the circumstances of those individuals and why they committed these crimes on innocent people, I realized we have a people problem. Sure we need to have some type of gun control measures to reduce the opportunity of troubled people to do this, but if we don’t try to fix our people it will not matter.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/billofrights