From Clerk to Civil Servant

The name sake for this blog comes from a line in one of my favorite movies, Clerks.  "You ever notice all the prices end in nine..." is not necessarily one of the many iconic lines from the film, but it captured what I was feeling when naming this little project.  Some things just happen and we are not sure why.  There is very likely a real explanation for why all the prices end in nine that some expert could give us, but we just go on with life accepting the mystery.  Like how does a former clerk, pizza delivery driver and server go from customer service  (like Randall and Dante) to public service.  Not only doing a job he never saw possible, but loving it at the same time.  Some expert might be able to explain it, but I'm happy perusing the mystery.

Customer service work is the best training I have had when it comes to working with people.  As a middle school principal I get to see wide range of easy to difficult situations that require tactful responses.  Much like when I was a gas station attendant, 95% of my transactions are mundane and required no thought.  Then there were those few that defined your whole day, aggravated you, and you told that story for years to come.  You went through enough of those episodes and it taught you how to deal with agreeable and non-agreeable people alike.  I was kinda good at it.

The biggest take away from those day is the simple courtesy that you show your customers. I'm more of a Dante than a Randall.  When I delivered pizza and waited tables, there were always little things I would do for the customer that would potentially yield a better tip. That still applies, but for a different reason. I want my parents and other stakeholders to feel that they are welcome back if they need me.

We can't operate in a pure customer service mindset in public schools, although many that seek us out feel that we can.  If we were to operate as if to satisfy every "customer" then we may cross the lines of fairness, violate a policy or heaven forbid, break the law.  It is difficult to to articulate this to an upset parent or other stakeholder that seeks us out.  The funny thing is, I still want those angry parents to dial me again.  Little by little, I want to gain their trust and respect.  Even if it takes a few attempts to do it.   Here are few tips for those customer service quagmires

• Do not predetermine your response before a visit or a phone call.  You never know how it is going to go.
• Be a good listener.  Most people that are upset, want to be heard even if you cannot help them.
• Make the situation important to you.  It is already important to them.
• Thank them when the exchange is over.

Back then, you might hear me say that this job would be great if it weren’t for the customers. Now that my role is drastically different with a much more important purpose, I’m thankful for my customers.  That sounds strange given that I have been yelled at and blasted on social media in the past when I was just trying to help.  I'd like tho think I am building a culture of welcome interactions with our parents and community members brick by brick.  That takes time and a lot of bricks.  It's worth the effort even though Randall might think there a bunch of savages in this town.

Presidential Politics in My Time

Last Sunday I watched a CNN interview with Jake Tapper and Pete Buttigieg. The first question was whether or not his sexual preference would go over well with black voters in the south. His response was stating that he hopes black voters sees what it will mean to them to have him as president.  I'm paraphrasing of course.  It got me to thinking about how much politics has changed since I became a voter in 1994.

First, lets be honest.  Presidential politics in my time means I have to be ready for people to be upset with my point of view.  I rarely post about politics because it unnecessarily divides us and it is quite sad to see good people argue online over a challenging political landscape.  Lets also be clear.  I do not care what your political preference is.  I am happy you participate, but hope you know how important it is to participate.

Moving on.  I remember my first presidential election.  I voted for Bill Clinton.  I remember the baggage that followed him from Arkansas.  Still, I knew he was type of leader that I was going to identify with despite his marital disasters.  It was simple to me.  I felt like I understood what our country needed and I felt that he was right for the job.  Simple as that.

It is no longer that simple. Since then, politics has taken a far different route and even farther from where our founders wanted it to go.  In my dream world, I am hoping we are electing Presidents based on their ability to be a public servant.  I definitely felt that way when I voted for Barack Obama twice.  I do not feel that way about Donald Trump.  Lots of Republicans feel this way despite so many leaders clinging to his occupancy of the White House.  We all knew what he represented when he was elected and somehow, he was.

President Trump was not elected based on his ability to be a good public servant for the American people.  He was elected based on probably the best election campaign strategy to date, even if he allegedly had help for a foreign country.  This is politics in my time.  We are electing the campaigns of candidates and not the actual names on the ballot.  Let me put this another way.  We have a really good way of marketing products, but the products are not very good.

Call me old fashioned, but I want to know what kind of person you are asking me to vote for.  What is their political experience?  What is their professional experience?  Do these things help make the candidate good for the job of President?  I know what is running through your mind right now.  You are probably thinking no candidate that emerges seems good enough.  No real fix of a problem is done over night.  We have to start voting for the right people.  If we make this a priority, only the right people will run for office.  Otherwise we are only voting for an election strategy.  That may be Presidential politics in my time, but it doesn't have to be fore my children when they become voters.

The Power of Grit on School Attendance

New school year means a new initiative will start.  Ours is improved school attendance.  This is my ninth year in my building and over and over again, I see the same attendance patterns play out.  We spend lots of work hours on our chronic truants between meetings and phone calls.  No we have shifted our effort towards reaching the chronic absentee.  Folks, this is a worthwhile endeavor that can reach more kids and improve academic performance.  We have turned to Attendance Works to shift towards a system of support, rather than a system of consequence for absenteeism.

Kids are absent from school for lots of different reasons.  As educators we know some do not have the support system that other students have.  Some have medical conditions that are out of their control.  And some just lack grit.  Those are the students I think we can impact as a school and as parents.

Angela Duckworth has made a career of research and writing on grit.  I read her book this summer and though it does not specifically provide insight on improving school attendance, it does provide a framework of habits and qualities that can help.  Grit defined in it's simplest definition is the passion and sustained persistence it takes to pursue long term goals.  It's about resilience and self-control.  The book is a great read.  But what does grit have to do with chronic absenteeism?

Why do kids miss school?  Surveys suggest that kids feel less engaged and connected with school as they get older.  To be clear, engaging students in the education process is the job of the school.  It should be our mission to help them see that school is theirs.  Grit is a personal quality of a student that arrives to our building.  So who then has that responsibility?  Families can raise gritty kids.  Gritty kids not only attend school, they power through obstacles and have a sense of purpose for what ever they take on.  They participate in extra-curricular activities and learn from adverse experiences.

What can parents do to raise gritty kids?  Duckworth describes this as "wise parenting" and it has only a few, but impactful components:

• Authoritative (not authoritarian)
• Hold high expectations
• Offers lots of support

She writes that this style helps produces kids that not only perform better, but they will try to match or surpass their parents through imitation.

After dealing with truant students for almost 13 years as an administrator, I can tell you that our kids that miss a bunch have parents that are not practicing this style of parenting.  Don't get me wrong, we have kids that miss a bit that do have gritty parents.  Again, we are not focusing on those with medical conditions or the severely poverty stricken (those could be a separate post).  We are talking about the kids that are staying home all day because they just didn't want to go.  The parents will call them in sick and go about they day.  This kind of permissive (or a lack of) parenting will hurt the student in the long run.

Instead, that parent should have consequences in place for blowing off school, communicated goals for school performance and be connected to the school if the child is not feeling supported by the school.  These meet the wise parent guidelines that Duckworth has set forth.  I can't tell you how many times I get the response "I just don't know what to do with them anymore."  When parents and caregivers lack grit, so will their kids.  This is best built from the ground up when they are small.  Trying to come in on the back end in adolescence is quite difficult.

Now that we are moving to a model of support, wise parenting will the be the dialog with our families.  Grit is a great personal quality that all of us can support in kids.  They will attend better and perform better and are more likely to lived more fulfilled lives as adults.

Resilience in Practice

I received some exciting news a couple days ago.  One of my students that has been battling Ewing's Sarcoma, has been told she is cancer free.  I remember saying that cancer didn't stand a chance against this kid in a Friday Afternoon video.  Knowing Piper like I did, I knew this was not a bold statement.  I knew she would beat her diagnosis and she did.

I lost a teacher to cancer several years ago.  If you have not been through this a school family, it is tough.  In a school setting you see students and teachers everyday.  You go through so many ups and downs that it bonds you.  When a serious situation like this happens, your school family takes it personal.  Our school and community rallied around Piper like they always have for others.  These are the moments that make you proud.  Everyone works towards helping the family and raising money for the path of uncertainty that comes with a cancer diagnosis.

I'm going to be a little selfish though and share what I got to see out of this outstanding young lady.  In my position you get to see kids do amazing things and make you proud to be where you are and doing the work that you do.  Despite all the craziness, she showed up.  She missed very few days of school and made the honor roll.  She only left school early when she could no longer physically stand during the day and still she could throw you a smile that would take your worries away.  One day she left early and I had just turned a young man away from wanting to go home.  He had a headache.  Sometimes I wish he had been there when she was in there to see how tough she was.  She was constantly showing resiliency and I hope the rest of our school family saw it like I did.

At Central, we say the word resilient all the time.  Did we catch it in practice?  Right under our noses we were getting an education, but did we know it?  I stole this picture from Jon Adkins' Facebook page because someday, I knew I would be telling her story.  Thank you to everyone that supported her, but most importantly I would like to thank Piper.  Thank you for your enduring spirit during tough times.  Thank you for smiling at my poor attempts at jokes in hopes of making you feel better.  Thank you for your example.  Thank you for inspiring others.  Thank you for being resilience in practice.  Now that you have beaten cancer, who knows what the possibilities are for you.  I know this 8th grader has left me with lessons I can teach to countless others down the road. 

Bearded Forgiveness

Warning: Personal post.

I grew a beard this year.  I'm not a beard guy.  I've never really had an opinion of them except to know that I would never want one.  My father wore a beard and maybe that's why I have such an indifference towards them.  I did not have a relationship with my father as I grew up.  It was a mild connectedness I would say.  I knew him.  I kind of understood what he did for a living.  I knew where he lived.  I was in his presence about five or six times that I can remember.  This was a far better relationship than I had with my mother.  I had never heard her voice until I was 40 years old.  I was raised by my grandmother (my mom) and I am happy for that.  I often remind myself of how lucky I am to have grown up in Marion, met the people I have met and ended up where I am.  Who knows if that would have been the same in Tennessee.

I saw him when my mom passed away.  It was a difficult time and it was tough way to try to reconnect with him.  As I left, we agreed to start over as friends and go from there.  At that point I was no longer angry with our situation.  I was grown, married and starting my life's work in the classroom.  I was happy to work on it with him, but we would have to take it slow.  I was a little optimistic that I would finally know him and understand my namesake.  My children would have a grandfather on my side to spoil them and some kind of normalcy might take place.  We never connected again until I visited him in nursing home care after a stroke.  He was non-verbal and struggling to stay alive.  He passed away a few days later.

It is a unique situation to be a dad that never had a dad.  My profession is mostly full of middle class folks with strong family ties.  Lots of conversations with them often start with, "my dad used to say..."  I never became bitter about my dad situation.  I just resolved to build my own family name from the ground up.  Then I was watching ESPN and Omar Epps was a guest on a show.  You may know his work in the 90's from the movies Juice and Higher Learning.  He later starred in the TV show House.  I liked his movies when I was in high school so his appearance perked my curiosity about his new book.  He had written about his experiences with the broken relationship with his father.  It was called From Fatherless to Fatherhood and I jumped on Amazon as quickly as I could to order it.

For me, this book was a page turner.  It was a stroll down hip hop culture's memory lane, but full of what life is like for a young man without a father in his life.  His mother was a school administrator so that of course scored points with me.  As he narrates his life and manhood struggles, he comes to a huge conclusion at the end.  He writes about the power of forgiveness and moving on.  He writes, "I stepped into a new level of maturity once I embraced the fact that my father was not my enemy.  He was simply a man, just as I am."  I grew my beard to show forgiveness towards my father.  It seemed like a harmless and removable gesture so I went for it.  I've never told anyone my motivation behind it and no one ever asked.  I just became some guy with a beard.

I had decided that I would wear the beard of forgiveness just for this school year and I was counting down the days until I cut it off.  Then, about a month ago my pastor does what he usually does and puts things in to perspective for me.  I'm not trying to recruit new church members, but if you have a chance to watch this sermon you should.  He didn't have the storybook relationship with his parents either, but still he honors his father and mother.  His message spoke to me that day and slowly, I started to reconsider cutting off my beard.  When I finally got up the nerve to do it, I asked my son if he wanted to watch.  I figured he would get a kick out of it.  Instead, he questioned me about why I was cutting it off and that I should leave it.  How's that for two signs that maybe I did a good thing?  The beard of forgiveness is still on my face.

Forgiveness is tough, but there are small ways you can show forgiveness to others.  As a teenager, I began to resent my father.  As I grew older, that resentment turned into indifference.  When I was a grown man and a father myself, I understood how to forgive him.  People are not perfect and now that he is gone, I can't try to understand why our lives were the way they were.  You have to move on and let others do the same.  I have no idea how long I will wear this beard.  Maybe one day I will feel like the gesture has been completed and I will shave it off.  Right now, I'm just a guy with a beard learning how to forgive.

Sin Taxes and the Collateral Damage

I sit in on some of my 7th grade classrooms to listen to their persuasive speeches.  I do this each year just to watch my students exercise a valuable life skill, to stand in front of others and defend a position that they care about.  The topics were what I would call typical for 7th graders,  Don't bully, don't smoke, etc.  One student did a topic that has real traction in this state and country.  He was persuading his classmates that marijuana should be legal.  This is not a new debate to those who follow state government, but he was especially passionate about it.

Central to the argument was that government could profit from the recreational sale of marijuana and farmers could benefit from the cash crop.  It is very hard to disagree with that.What I can disagree with is that the trend over the past few years to is to expand all the things that hurt or further impoverish our citizens that need us most. We have expanded gambling in this state and we have now legalized weed for recreational purposes.

Think about all the vices we have as a country.  Some can handle the recreational approach to gambling, drinking and so on.  Many cannot and become addicted.  This does not only have an immediate impact on them individually, but also their families and friends.  When we turn to get rich schemes with public policy, these folks are the collateral damage.  I understand that 60% of Illinoisans want this, but we have also been conditioned to understand our financial woes as a state.  We would welcome any kind of relief.  Even if it means at the risk of hurting more of our citizens.  If we were secure financially, would this be a discussion?  I'm not sure.

Gambling expansion seems to be another way out of financial crisis for the state.  Another addictive behavior that is becoming popular for revenue.  Don't get me wrong, my school has benefited form the way West Frankfort has used their gaming terminal revenues.  They have supported the needs of school groups and the development of programs for the city's kids.  The new money is a blessing for people that can benefit from it.  How many local communities are using the revenue responsibly?

My challenge to Illinois is that if we continue to balance our budget off of "sin" taxes, support those lives that are wrecked to make that money.  A recent article in the Southern Illinoisan detailed the state's record on the lack of support for gambling addiction and that they do not track the number of gambling addicts in the state.  This is shameful and irresponsible.  It gives the impression that this is purely a money grab and they the needs of vulnerable Illinoisans are not considered.  Step up Illinois, if you plan to balance the budget this way.

The Social Emotional Playbook

Being a junior high/middle school principal is tough.  In my building I am basically on my own when it comes to the social emotional struggles we face.  I do have a very good social worker once a week and we do get help from a local company with mental health issues.  These are for extreme cases though and the daily battle of handling conflict and issues the right way is time consuming.  For instance, to tackle a rumor that is going around that may be causing a student headaches at school can take the form of interviewing lots of kids until you whittle it down to the two that are actually having problems in hopes of helping them resolve their situation.  If you care about your students and handle this process with sincerity, it can help them learn how to handle these things in the future and keep the peace among your students.  The investment is always worth it in some way.

What I have caught myself saying over the years, especially to 8th grade students, is that they need to have learned the "playbook" by now so they don't get into these troubles.  Basically what I am saying is, kids see the same hurtful scenarios play out all the time but act surprised when it happens to them.  It's like there is a playbook when it comes to teasing, hurting or dominating someone.  This gave me a crazy idea to try with my students this year.  I am starting my own SEL playbook.

Lets be clear about the goals of having social emotional "plays".  These should be actions students can take to work out problems, show empathy and does not allow them to win or elevate their position against others.  Teaching kids to dominate others is a pathway to bullying and would be counter productive to the mission.  I have narrowed this down to the SEL skills I want them to master.  They are Relationship Building, Empathy, Conflict Resolution,  Adaptability, Social Awareness, and Responsible Decision Making.  Sure you can buy curriculum to address these but sometimes the best training is in the situations as they arise.

Here are the plays:

Pick Me Up - Social Emotional Skills Emphasized: Empathy, Relationship Building, Social Awareness.  Large group or whole school approach.  This play should be run constantly everyday.

What to do - Go out of your way to pick someone up.  Never let anyone sit alone or walk the halls alone.  If someone needs a pencil or paper, give it to them if you have it.

Shuffle - Social Emotional Skills Emphasized: Adaptability, Relationship Building, Social Awareness.  Whole school focus that can be done periodically.

What to do - Encourage students to attach to someone outside their normal friend group.  This might be at recess, the lunch table or at a sporting event.  Many of my students complain about cliques.  This is a way to help break them up.

Shutdown - Social Emotional Skills Emphasized: Responsible Decision Making, Conflict Resolution.  Very small groups and individuals as situations arise after an initial consultation with me.

What to do - When nasty rumors or fight talk is taking place, encourage students to find a way to shutdown all discussion on the matter by changing the subject.  For example, Jimmy tells Timmy that he heard he was going to get into a fight.  Timmy simply responds by saying that they have worked it out and nobody is going to fight and then quickly move on to another subject.  When done correctly, I have found that this reduces the "word around the campfire" affect that can happen when kids are arguing.  Kids tend to amplify trouble and prevent the two involved from really addressing their issue.

Goldie - Social Emotional Skills Emphasized: Conflict Resolution, Social Awareness, Adaptability.  Very small groups or individuals.

What to do - Based in part on a New York Times article and the golden rule.  When teasing and or bullying gets bad and unbearable, encourage the student to deflect it by using positive language that confounds the teaser.  Example: Jenny tells Suzie that she is not invited to her party because nobody likes her.  Suzie responds by simply saying, "That's fine.  I hope your party goes well."  When the tormentor is not getting a rise out of her, she will move on to someone that will get upset.  Suzie is also using the same positive language that she would want to have used with her.

This is obviously not a comprehensive list of plays for students to run to improve their own social well-being, but it is surely a start.  If your efforts fail it may be a signal that the students you are working with need more intensive support and a referral to your counselor may be necessary.  Don't fail to realize that even if your efforts are not enough, you are still forging a relationship with your students that will pay off.  They do appreciate it even if they are always finding themselves in trouble.  The coach in me wants to push my kids to success and there is noting wrong with having a playbook for them to use.  Happy coaching Principals!