The Power of "And"

This past week, I had the privilege of learning with three other members of the St. Johnsbury School District Leadership team. We spent two days with Jennifer Abrams (@jenniferabrams) in two different workshops entitled "Having the Hard Conversations" and "Swimming in the Deep End." The way that I take notes when I'm in professional development days like this is by tweeting - it's easy to refer to my timeline to see the parts of the day that really impacted me.

One of my tweets this week was this one:

Abrams made many specific connections to the importance of relationships in education, specifically for leaders who are working through dynamic changes. Relationships will make or break our work in education, period. Whether it's teacher to student, student to student, leadership to teacher, teacher to family, leadership to the community; regardless of what the relationship is, this is where our work begins and ends in education.

And yet, there tends to be an either/or mentality when it comes to reasonable, professional accountability. Somehow, we can't do both. We can either care for someone else's well being (personally or professionally) or share some hard truths. We can either acknowledge that there are substantial stressors in their life (personally or professionally) or ask them to improve their practice. We can either be empathetic to where someone is in their world (personally or professionally) or give professional feedback to improve student outcomes.

Abrams reminded us very clearly about the power of and. We can care for someone else's well being and share some hard truths. We can acknowledge that there are substantial stressors in their life and ask them to improve their practice. We can be empathetic to where someone is in their world and give professional feedback to improve student outcomes.

I am not suggesting that when someone experiences trauma and returns to work to begin having hard conversations about their job performance. And, if we are waiting for the "perfect" moment (personally and professionally) to start a professional discussion about improvement on behalf of students, we will be waiting a long time. Our students and our professionals deserve more.

We can do both.

Photo courtesy of www.medicalnewstoday.com