Don't Miss Story Time

I was really excited to get the opportunity to do the February entry for the Principal's Calendar for the IPA.  The task was to use the School Leaders Paradigm to help fellow administrators to reflect on the leadership attributes in the Paradigm.  If you have yet to look at the Principal's Calendar, you need to.  I have found it to be a helpful resource for those things that are time sensitive and that help you stay connected to what we do.

I picked February for the attribute of "Guiding".  The short description is "Acts as a trusted adviser, drawing from personal experience and expertise to offer guidance and support."  I took this to mean, how can you help others to realize their role of guiding their staff and students.  One good way I have done this is through story telling.  I think this is something we all do but discredit it as a leadership skill.  Guess what, a lot of inspiration comes from storytelling.

I can speak to this personally.  During my undergraduate studies I had a great Civil Rights Law instructor.  He had a great way of telling the story behind a case before we had to learn the stuffy legal stuff.  When we heard the story first, we were invested in the characters and wanted to learn more about the legal process.  I loved this class.  When I began to teach civics and world history, I did this a lot.  I know we have to teach the technical stuff and the names/dates but my teaching effort was more fruitful when I was a good story teller first.  When I began my graduate work at SIUC, I again had great retired administrators that understood the art and power of story telling.  I'm not sure I would have ever been inspired to become a school leader without those experiences.

As a principal, I do not get many chances to be a story teller but I seize those moments when they happen.  One of my favorite times of the year is when I speak to the school news paper on the stories behind censorship in schools and the case law that has shaped their legal rights.  I tell stories when we have talk circles.  I use that opportunity not to read the handbook to them, but to motivate them with tales of students past and how they recover from their circumstances.  They are engaged with he story and even though you don't use names, they connect with that person's situation.  To begin this year, I asked our teachers to tell their stories.  This became a great way to learn more about each other but it inspired us as a group.

I think those that have been moved and inspired by others are easiest to convince that this is a leadership skill.  If you don't feel that this is something you could be good at, just try it once.  People want to hear about relate able experiences when they need help.  This art is everywhere we go and woven into popular culture.  If you're a Star Wars nut like me, you may have noticed that little boy at the end of the movie.  After listening intently to the stories the other children were telling, he went outside to gaze at the stars.  The real nerds were wondering if this kid would be the next Jedi in Rian Johnson's new trilogy, but I saw it for what it was.  A kid with potential, looking to be inspired.  You have lots of these little guys in your schools.  Don't miss story time when the opportunity arises.

Ten Years From Now

I can tell you that the most cringe worthy thing to hear a parent ask is, "is my kid hanging around the bad kids?"  People think I'm crazy but I do not believe there is such a thing as a bad kid.  Sure I have kids that act out and need consequence and sure that means I have be loud sometimes.  That is a reality of the job even though it disappoints me to get to those moments.

The reality is there are no bad kids, only kids that have poor adult examples around them.  You can apply any demographic measurement around a student and it will always come back to the adults in a child's life.  I am a good example of this.  I could have been defined as at-risk of dropping out by today's standards but I had great adults around me.  I was raised by a loving grandmother and I had teachers that saw my potential and held me to it daily.  What adults often fail to see is potential.  Are we concerned about the kid we see today or the kid we hope to see in ten years?

Sometimes my students have to see the loud side of me.  I try hard not to get there, but what I hope they realize is that I'm not upset with the behaviors I am seeing, I'm upset knowing that those behaviors might cause failure as an adult ten years down the road.  I fear that they do not know their potential and I fear that I am not leading them to it.  This is a real struggle of any school employee that actually cares about what they are doing.  What what about everybody else?

Any adult can change a "bad" kid into an awesome kid.  What ever role you occupy in a kid's life, you can make a difference if no one else is.  I know the "it takes a village" is cliche but it is true.  There was a time if one of the neighbor parents yelled that she was going to tell your mother what you did, it meant a whoopin' when we got home.  Now it seems that parents are constantly competing with each other and there is no village.  Yet we always complain about the good old days and how kids used to behave and had manners.  The real truth is that we have to change if we want kids to change.  Can we all handle that truth?  Can we handle the reality that our kids are a reflection of us and their failures are our failures?

Adults of the world, take a good look.  You may not be a principal, a teacher or a coach but you can have an impact on one of those "bad" kids.  That kid that challenges your authority is a pain, but how can you nurture that into a gift?  He may turn into someone who speaks for those who cannot speak for themselves.  He may stand up so some other kid so they will have a future in ten years. 

Last week during a truancy meeting a student told us that she cannot get to school most days because her mother stays out late every night and cant get up to get her to school.  Yes, that's a sad story but I had much worse.  I see examples of adults that are unfit to raise their children and I fear what will happen with those kids.  They need an X factor and that can be any caring adult that believes in them.  Sometimes that's a neighbor, a teacher, a coach, a pastor or the friend of a friend.  I never give myself the option of giving up on a kid and sometimes I'm all they have.  They come to school everyday to have a functional adult in their life and even of we argue every day or they get into trouble, they show up for us.  I will speak for all school staff when I say we are proud to be this person.  The reality is, if its just us its not going to be enough.  Adults of the world, stand up for a kid's next ten years.