Tag Archives: cultural proficiency

An Open Letter to the 2016 Presidential Candidates

Dear 2016 Presidential Candidates,

In a few days, this election will finally be over. I can say that while I have seen and voted in some crazy presidential elections, including ones with recounts due to “hanging chads,” this election leaves me the most dismayed.

I believe the nastiness directed at each other’s despicable behavior is leaving our country exhausted, angry, stressed, and hopeless. Unfortunately, it seems that even though the election will end, the thought of either of you as president won’t really leave anyone feeling united or having hope for the future.

I believe in growth mindset. I believe that we can make mistakes and recover. I believe we always have the ability to become more than we once were with intentional effort and putting the needs of other first. I believe it takes time, but with consistency we have the power to change perceptions.

I remember as a young child, feeling excitement about the presidential election. I remember a sense of pride in our president, even if it wasn’t my choice. This was the person who was the exemplar of protecting our country. As the principal of an elementary school, this is what I want for my students. I want them to have hope in our future and belief in a leader that truly looks out for the world they will live in as adults.

Lead with impeccable character. Be someone who the entire country can be amazed at your transformation into someone who will always do what is right and leave behind the agendas of special interests. I would like to see someone who the nation looks in awe and disbelief because the person leading our nation does not even closely resemble the person from the news in the months before the election was decided.

As I leader, I realized that to be successful, I had to invest in the root cause of our struggles. I believe you will have to do this for the good of our country. Invest in our children. Heal our nation by helping society to learn value for all. We need to focus on the future, not the past. We need you to be the model of unity, compassion, accountability, and servant leadership. We don’t need any more sarcasm, judgment, shortcuts, self-service, fear mongering or “justified rule-breaking”. It’s toxic and it is killing our great nation.

If America is to thrive in the 21st century, we have to abandon this “whatever feels good do it”, “it’s all about me” attitude. We have to quit widening the divide between those who are fearful and those that are angry. This depth of character must start at the top. Before you is an amazing opportunity. It is the chance to simply confirm the negative perceptions or an opportunity to be more than anyone ever thought you could be and go down in history as one of our greatest leaders.

We don’t have four years to waste and get it right the next time. So, to whichever of you wins, prove us wrong. Prove the stories about you wrong. Be the great leader this country needs. We need a president that will serve all Americans, not just the ones who voted for you because they felt they could manipulate you to serving their interest or that voted for you because you were the one that made them less afraid. It will take time, but please make Americans proud.

May God bless you, and God bless America.

An American With a Sense of Urgency

 

 

 

What If?

We seem to be at a crossroads in education.  If we go one direction, we will continue to judge schools and their success by a single test without giving consideration to the growth that has occurred. Teachers will feel it necessary to resort to test preparation as that is how they are judged. Our best teachers will avoid the demanding classrooms so as not to put themselves at risk of judgment, mandates, and additional paperwork. Students will be limited in what they learn because what is assessed on a test is only a fraction of what they need to know to be successful in life. Parents will become disillusioned with the progress and those with means will move them to other options. District will put pressure on school leaders and will, in turn, pass this on to teachers with more paperwork and documentation. In the meantime, our society becomes more and more segregated. The ones left behind become angry and the ones who left become fearful of them because they can no longer relate to each other. What if this approach results in more violence in the future than what we see even today?

what-if

But what if we choose a different future?

What if federal and state governments quit trying to define student success with a test? What if they quit trying to quantify complex human development by a test score?  What if they encouraged schools to use these assessments to improve their instruction and meet needs of students, but left the true definitions of school success to the communities where those schools reside? What if special interest groups took “special interest” in our schools and pledged support rather than trying to find out ways to take the public funds that they haven’t yet been able to touch?

What if communities stand behind their schools?  What if when they feel the school is struggling, they step up to help, provide support for students, staff, and families? What if those with criticisms couldn’t sling mud at public education without having direct
knowledge of the situations with which they are passing judgment?  What if wanted to speak about a school and it’s performance, you must first spend time there with the people volunteering?  What if you couldn’t lump schools all together but had to speak specifically about situations in which you had personal experience? What if our media spent as much time talking about all the accomplishments of public schools and didn’t just highlight the isolated negative examples?

What if school administrators don’t have to worry about spending funds to survive, but can use dollars in practices that promote thriving such as professional learning for teachers?  What if they felt free to restructure schedules to provide teachers with ongoing collaboration and professional learning so that they could be sure that teachers were always at the forefront of their profession, masters of the learning standards and best practice in instructional techniques? What if when they saw a teacher in need, they could provide that teacher with the support they needed to grow and improve rather than feeling pressure to get them out?

What if because schools feel supported, teachers feel less stressed and feel they have the time to stop and build strong relationships with students and their families? What if teachers feel they can develop innovative, meaningful lessons that actually apply to the future that our what-if-4-300x175students will live in because they aren’t scared about test outcomes? What if they could collaborate and share without the pressure to hold back so that they could ensure they weren’t the bottom performer?  What if we valued teachers as the creators of all other professions and compensated them as such?

What if parents didn’t abandon schools for homeschooling, private and charter schools in an effort to isolate their children from those with experiences that may be very different from their own?  What if they were adamant to model that when something isn’t what we want it to be, they stick with it and become a part of the solution?

What if we had children from all different backgrounds that learned to value each other and learned to live together without fear and without anger? What if these students were able to learn the skills needed in reading, writing, math along with skills like collaboration, grit, growth mindset, technology, and problem-solving?

What if?

I can say I am fortunate to be a part of a district where our school board fights for local control.  I work in a district where our district leaders don’t point fingers, but rather ask “what can we do to support you?” and give campuses the freedom to do what they need to let-be-what-ifdo to make a difference with their students.  I have parents walking my halls taking care of all students, willing to take part in conversations when they have concerns, rather than resorting to silence and abandonment.  I have teachers that are the epitome of lifelong
learners. They have become masters of state standards and design meaningful learning that is resulting in stronger students with each passing year.  I have students that are learning the value of diversity.  They are learning to work things out together and hold themselves accountable for high levels of learning and growth. My campus has gone from plummeting scores and declining enrollment to scores and enrollment on the rise.  I am one of the fortunate principals who has had the freedom not to be defined by a test and the feel the support of my district and community.

What if all schools had this?

what-if-why-not

You Matter

you_matter-60919As we stand on the frontier of the new school year, after a tumultuous summer of racial division, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about where our country has been and where it is going. I worry for my children and my students and the future they face. I desperately want things to be better for them.

As I grew up, I believed that the civil rights issues of the 60s were healing because of the work of people like Martin Luther King.  He had perished, but maybe we had learned?  Then in the early nineties, we faced the O.J. Simpson trials and Rodney King incident to bring to the forefront that things had not improved.  Tension seemed to die down over time,  but now, we are once again faced with riots across the country and senseless lives lost.  People quickly categorized to make sense of things they didn’t understand without looking deeper. People on all sides of the issues feel invisible, devalued, and less than human.  As a result, there is anger. Lots of it.

 I’ve seen people react in anger to statements such as “Black Lives Matter” or even “Blue Lives Matter.”  The truth is, a simple statement of “____ lives matter” has nothing to do with saying that one group matters more than others.  The statement has more to do with the fact that there is a population of people who are angry, hurt, and feel like they are not seen.  They feel like they do not matter to others, so they say, “Hey, I matter! Notice me.  See me.  Respect me.”

Four years ago, I worked in a place that I did not matter.  Once, I was in a public restroom it-would-be-too-easy-to-say-that-i-feel-invisible-instead-i-feel-painfully-visible-and-entirely-ignored-being-ignored-quotewith a higher official who looked through me as if I was invisible even though she was two feet in front of me. She had even been someone who had previously mentored me and praised my work to move into a principal role a just a few weeks earlier. I would go to football games in this town where the leader of the district would walk up the stadium steps and greet everyone, shaking hands and kissing babies, if you will. Ironically, his big catch phrase was “You matter.”  Every time I heard those words come from his mouth, I thought “unless he decides you don’t.”  Others noticed this behavior and began to alienate me as well. Who could blame them? I mean no one wants to be in the “you don’t matter group.”  Being invisible made me both angry and depressed.  I swung on a pendulum of despair and rage.  I wanted to go up to these people and say “Look at me! I’m here!  I matter!”

When I left this place and was able to come to a new role as principal of a campus in another district, the staff at this school shared similar stories.  Their perceptions were that they were invisible.  People who lived blocks away didn’t even seem to know the school was there.  They said that when they were with others in the district and shared what school they were from, colleagues sighed and looked at them with pity. One teacher shared “we aren’t even on the map.” eyoreNo this wasn’t literally, but what it meant was they felt invisible as if they didn’t matter. Because I knew this feeling all too well, that became my mission.  To ensure that this amazing group of educators knew they mattered…to me, to others in the district… to everyone.  In one of our first meetings, I remember saying the words “We are Degan.”  It became our hashtag and has been in place going on our fourth year.  We put it on everything.  It doesn’t mean we were better than other schools (although I am particularly fond of this amazing school community).  It means Degan Matters!  We are here.  See us.

I am fortunate now to work for a district that values the concept of cultural proficiency. A district that recognizes we are all the sum of all of our experiences, not just one or even two.  I am grateful that they provide us with intentional experiences to begin crossing this great divide to see people  for all that they are and value them, not just tolerate, ignore, or even worse, dismiss them. They expect us to see things from the alternate perspectives so that we build the relationships we all need to grow and improve.

I don’t claim to be an expert in cultural proficiency or to completely understand perspectives from lives that I haven’t lived.

 A statement like this comes from hurt.  From anger.  It probably isn’t anything about you, other than to say “Hey, see me. Value me.  I want to 7816351058_c0d63f07e2_zmatter to you.” It’s time to quit making broad brush, quick judgments.  It’s time to start looking at others and seeing from their perspective.  It’s time to do better and be better.  Yes, it will take grit to work through centuries of old issues.  It will take grace as we learn how to discuss these things with empathy and compassion,  and it will take growth mindset to truly heal and move forward so that we can make this place a better world for our children and where this history can finally stop repeating itself.

 

If You Take All the Mouse’s Cookies

This is an article I wrote published this month in National Association of Elementary School Principals’ magazine “The Principal”.

https://www.naesp.org/principal-novemberdecember-2015-breaking-cycle/inspire-growth

Ground Zero

“The point closest to where an explosion occurs” is the definition of ground zero.  It might not be what one would consider a way to define a school, but in today’s world where there is a newly coined phrase of “Complex Prolonged Traumatic Stress Disorder” (CPTSD) for our students, it appears to be an accurate analogy.

Recently, I heard an amazing keynote by Dr. Jeff Duncan-Adrade.  He shared with us about this concept that children today are often growing up in situations where they are experiencing prolonged traumatic stress.  While a reasonable amount of stress is normal and healthy, prolonged stress becomes toxic and damaging to the body of an adult, much less the developing body and brain of a child.  He referred to studies that show that children with prolonged stress, especially those from poverty, often experience symptoms similar to that of soldiers returning from combat.

While the thought of this comparison was completely overwhelming, I also experienced a bit of relief in terminology to explain phenomena that I deal with almost daily.  It is as if I am battling unknown demons in some of my students. I use every weapon I have in hopes of freeing them from invisible oppressors that consume their thoughts and actions to liberate their minds to create room to learn. Having family in the military and serving as first responders, this is not a statement that I take lightly.  However when you look, many children these days, coupled with their underdeveloped coping mechanisms, it is easier to understand why schools are facing more and more students with trauma-induced symptoms.

In a recent battle, I received a call from a substitute in the building.  She was concerned that a student was being defiant and disrupting the learning of others.  I was surprised to find it was a student who had struggled in the previous year, but settled down into learning and had put forth some fantastic effort this year.

As I entered the classroom, all of the students were seated and working except the one.  He was walking around the classroom bouncing a ball.  When I entered, I motioned for him to come to me and held out my hand for the ball.  Luckily, he handed the ball to me and came voluntarily.  During the next 45 minutes,  he sat and rocked in my office.  I could see in his eyes that he had withdrawn deep into the depths of his mind.

I knew that to get him back, I had to get him using words.  After some time to rock in silence, I began asking some questions. Initially, our conversation involved me asking questions and him staring past me.  Gradually this evolved into nodding, then repeating sentences when given two choices.  Eventually, we collaborated to find a solution that allowed him to do some of his learning in another classroom.  I was so proud of him being willing to accept doing some work in another class even though he knew the work would be more difficult and require more effort on his part.

I was so relieved that we had found a solution and that learning for everyone could resume.  Unfortunately, later that day, this same student was escorted to the office. Someone had contacted a different administrator and reported that “he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.”  It had been such a busy day, I hadn’t had a chance to let my assistant principal know the situation, and now the student had been given a consequence for doing what he and I had arranged.

This incident is where the physical conflict began. Kicking.  Hitting. Trying to leave the building.  All communication lost once again.  The student felt betrayed, and he was no longer going to listen to anyone much less speak with them. As I sat with this student, I couldn’t help but reflect on the words of the keynote from the week before.  Kids in crisis expect you to give up on them.  They expect you to disappoint them.  That is what they have known.  I did the only thing I could think of at this point.  I apologized.

Now this student looked at me like I was crazy as I explained to him why I was sorry and how miscommunication had resulted in him getting in trouble even though he was doing what he had agreed to do. I asked him to forgive me, and he looked at me with an even more perplexed expression.  I explained that when someone does wrong and hurts someone, even if they didn’t mean to, the person who did the wrong must apologize.  But the next step is the person who was hurt to forgive them.  I asked again if he would forgive me and he responded “yes.”  My student was back.

I think the reason this story is critical is because we have to acknowledge what schools face. Stories like these are more and more common with children today. I wouldn’t take back the time spent on this incident because I believe valuable lessons were learned by all.  Students who witnessed our interactions saw adults show compassion to a child in crisis.  The child in crisis felt the unconditional support of adults who were not going to give up on him no matter what.  He saw me, the principal, take accountability for my own actions and seek to make the situation right. De-escalation was achieved without casualties.

As a result of this incident, I thought even more about why schools and communities may be facing increased numbers of these incidents. Children in crisis are occurring in all types of schools, public and private, highly affluent and high poverty, inner-city, suburban and rural. Personally, I think it has a great deal to do with the fact that even though our country has been considered a “great melting pot” of diversity, it has historically been composed of homogenous communities.  As groups came to this country, they settled with their families and people who shared the same backgrounds, values, and cultures. Children raised with the support of extended families were well grounded in community expectations.  Children attended schools where the other kids were likely raised very similarly to themselves and taught by teachers with by teachers with ideas much like their parents.

As we entered the digital age, everything changed. Families spread out across the country connected only by technology. Neighborhoods became more like “tossed salad” with people from different cultures maintaining their original values rather than “melting” together. Families raising children in isolation put high demands on parents.  Children today live in a Rated R world, exposed to adult language, violence, and adult situations, not just on television and video games, but in the face-to-face interactions in the world. In addition to stresses of today’s world with poverty, work demands, increases of traumatic illnesses, our children no longer have a “world of innocence” and are faced with incredible stress at a very young age that is carried into schools with them every day.

While schools may be “ground zero” for some of the social explosions going on in the world around us, I would propose that schools have the potential to become a community’s “Epicenter of Hope.”  Public education is an excellent source to bring a diverse community together. Rather than watering down individual cultures, they can promote value for each others’ differences.  We can teach our children how to appreciate each other and treat each one another with respect. Schools can provide support to families who need someone to stand in partnership with them in raising their children in the absence of extended family.  We can connect families in crisis with resources and model support rather than judgment.

At the same time, we also have to acknowledge that creating a culture of support takes time.  Rather than launching additional attacks against teachers, our legislators, media, and the general public need to provide backup to educators on the front line. Providing quality learning in the midst of some of the mental battles our students face can tick valuable instructional minutes off the clock while we ensure we meet students’ most basic needs to prepare them for learning. Satisfying these needs is something that we must do if we want to prevent further deterioration of our society.  Unfortunately, success in filling these voids is not measured on state or federal accountability systems, even though it must occur before the things that are measured can take place. Teachers need more tools and training to fight the enemies our children face. The battle for our children’s future is real and it will take everyone together to achieve victory.

Below are some good resources for Educators:

How to Help a Traumatized Child in the Classroom

Child Trauma Toolkit for Educators