The Beauty in Ordinary Things

It is fair to say that we are living in extraordinary times. 

There is very little of our lives that feel normal, or at least the way they felt before March of 2020. We wear masks regularly, we cannot hug those outside of our "pod," and we have to be physically distant from others. Schools, it seems, are bearing the brunt of this, and it really seems antithetical to what education was designed to be. Case in point, I was speaking to a teacher recently who relayed a story to me about how, when walking with a young person to the bathroom, the young person extended their hand to hold hands for the walk. While the teacher wanted nothing more than to hold that young person's hand, for the sake of public health, the teacher gently replied, "I can't right now." And while it broke that teacher's heart to share that story, and it breaks my heart to retell that story, the teacher did the "right" thing. 

So what is one to do when living in times like this? How do we find our way when we cannot do the basics of relationships with those we see every day? I offer that we need to look to the ordinary and find the beauty in everyday things. And as a huge fan of the TV show The Office, I know how poignant this really is. 

As I've written plenty of times before, the best part of being a superintendent is visiting classrooms. I can interact with students, teachers, and learn along with them. I can sit and read, listen to what students are learning, and connect with the adults. Rarely, if ever, do I need to redirect students with more than a "Put your eyes on the learning," while I'm in the room. I genuinely have the best of all worlds, like the silly uncle who shows up for dinner, with no disciplinary responsibility to my nieces or nephews whatsoever. 

In the course of my time this year, I've already been received art from our St. J students. This first picture is from a kindergarten student who gave me the express instructions: "Show your friends and your family, but not your neighbors!" 

This picture below is from the daughter of a colleague who was in the office one afternoon this week. We've interacted a little before on Zoom, but this was our first time meeting each other in person. 

The simplicity of both gestures - or really any time a student gives me something - always lands on the softest part of my heart. I'm proud that I'm a known person to our school community, that I'm visible, and students know who I am. And while they don't truly understand what a superintendent does, as long as they know I care about their growth and learning, I am a happy camper. Their kindness in giving me their work never fails to genuinely touch me. 

My final example is this: 

Yes, that's a salad with my name on it. Perhaps I can give you some context. 

Before the pandemic, our cafeteria had a fresh salad bar that we could partake in, and I was happy to take advantage of it regularly. I even wrote about it in an earlier post What's On Your Tray? I've missed having this healthy option at work, especially since I will share that I've gained a few pounds since the emergency school dismissal in March. 

This week, our cafeteria announced they would make salads for those of us who were interested in having one by merely filling out a form and submitting it to the Food Service staff the day before. I was really excited to have this be a part of my day again but didn't truly recognize just how much until I went and picked up the salad above. I brought it back to our conference room and literally did a chair dance. So much so that the rest of my Leadership Team dubbed it "The Joy of a Salad." 

But a salad is so ordinary, you might say. It's nothing really; it's vegetables with meat and cheese. But in these extraordinary times, we need to find our moments of happiness in things that we perhaps take for granted. We need to find our way with others through smiling eyes if we cannot see the rest of their face. We need to savor the moments when our hearts sing, and we forget that we're living in extraordinary times. 

Like when students in your district give you pictures. Or the joy of a salad. 

We need to find the beauty in ordinary things. 

Photo courtesy of www.me.me (from The Office)

Wisdom from The Fonz

Growing up, one of the approved after school TV shows my family watched was Happy Days. Yes, it was appointment viewing, post-snack, before homework. For those of you who don't know this show, it was a sitcom that ran for eleven seasons, ostensibly about the Cunningham Family, and The Fonz (played by Henry Winkler) was the local bad boy who rode a motorcycle. Now, I do need to state that the trouble that Fonzie got into would pale in comparison to some of the situations we see on network sitcoms in the 21st Century!

Still, The Fonz was a household name and continues to act, winning an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role in Barry. He was on the NPR News Quiz "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me," and while interviewed for the game "Not My Job," he talked about gratitude and tenacity. Here's how Winkler describes it: 

"Tenacity allows me to get where I want to go, and gratitude prevents me from being angry along the way."

Now, I will be honest, I didn't expect that kind of insight from someone who I knew for one sound growing up: 

And yet, the more I thought about it, we can all take so much from The Fonz, especially during this very unusual time. 

We need tenacity. We are living in, perhaps, the most polarized time in our history. Even our response to the pandemic is being judged by others to be political. To wear a mask or not wear a mask, despite the science, is essentially a referendum on who you are voting for in November. In education, there has always been a healthy tension between taking care of your own children and learning with other people's children. In the era of hybrid learning, that tension has grown to an incredibly challenging level. 

Education itself is more challenging than ever. We are in a place in our country's history when it's impossible to put all children in all buildings as we have done almost every year since public education began. Trust me, teaching was hard last year before the pandemic, and this public health crisis has amplified the issues of equity that plagued us in the first place. Teachers are heroes, they were tenacious last year before the emergency school dismissal, and they are even more tenacious now. 

We need gratitude. The collective level of anxiety we are feeling causes us to not be our best selves. We hear a rumor, we worry that it might be true, and we pass it along without thinking. We are judgmental of others while hoping others won't be judgmental of us. The insidious nature of this disease - the fact that asymptomatic people can transmit it - causes us to be more cynical of others, especially of others who are not approaching it with the same level of care as we do. 

This is causing us to miss moments, moments that remind us of our humanity. I was reminded of this while at bus dismissal last week. It's usually a hectic time, and this year even more so. I rushed one student to their bus when I saw another child (kindergarten, I think) starting to cry. For a moment, I thought this little one was lost too, but that wasn't the reason she was crying. This little one cried because she saw her older sister waiting for her in front of their bus. The little one broke free from the adult holding her hand, ran to her sister, and jumped into her arms. Their tears of joy were a beautiful moment I feel privileged to have witnessed. 

So Fonzie, the tenacity we've got. And we're working on the gratitude. 

Photo courtesy of www.tinybuddha.com

It Really is About the Students

It was like the anticipation of all my favorite holidays rolled into one. Along with the required amount of nervousness that comes with opening up a public place for more than 300+ students, with over 170 employees during a global health pandemic. That was how it felt as I went to sleep on Monday, September 7, of this past week. 

Our Reopening Taskforce had worked incredibly hard to follow the guidelines. Our Facilities staff had to not only prepare for the reality of the new cleaning and distancing measures but had to put our building back together after the bond work. Our Teachers were working to prepare lessons for both in-person and remote learning. 

As I drove to work that day, I thought about all of the students and staff returning to familiar buildings, with unfamiliar expectations: masks, physical distancing, and lots of handwashing. I also thought about the students who were coming to school for the very first time and the adults who were starting Day 1 in a new position at a new school.  I wondered and worried, anxious to get to the building to see what it looked like. 

When I arrived and entered the building, there was a strange calm. For one, we had half as many students as we usually did, but besides that, there was a vague sense of quiet. Not the kind of quiet that worries me as an educational leader, but more of a muted excitement. Children were walking in the hall, down the side opposite of me, following the markings on the floor, and spaced appropriately apart from each other. Their eyes were smiling. I started to relax a little. 

I started to visit classrooms, curious to see what it would be like. From Kindergarten through 8th grade, our students were there doing the work of childhood: learning with their classmates and teachers. There were blocks, beans, and base ten cubes. I saw fractions, formative assessments, and friendships. There was literacy, lunch, and love. I saw recess, rubrics, and above all, an emphasis on relationships. At the end of our first day, I took a short video of the last bus leaving our bus loop: 

I exhaled and started to reflect on what made Day 1 such a success. I was so worried about so many things going wrong. It felt like we had been working on this first day since we were thrust into the emergency school dismissal in March. It didn't take me long to realize what made this day so wonderful. It's what makes each and every Day 1 I've been a part of as a professional educator special for the past twenty-five years: it's the students. 

The last time I was a full-time classroom teacher was nineteen years ago. I was teaching first grade in Boston and was incredibly nervous. I had never taught a class that young before. The night before, while talking to the woman who would become My Wife, she gave me some wonderful advice that saw me through that first day: "Ricca, you know how to talk to kids. Go into that classroom, talk to them, and listen. The rest will come." 

My students made it better for me on that first day back in 2001, and they made it better for us this past week when they came through our doors on Tuesday & Wednesday. They will continue to make it better for all the educators around the world, trying to find our way through this upside-down educational environment. They will continue to make it better for us in Vermont, and right here in St. Johnsbury, with their smiling eyes. 

We know how to talk to kids. Go into those classrooms, talk to them, and listen. 

The rest will come. 

Photo/quote courtesy of www.quotehd.com

On Grace

There are so many thoughts swirling around in my head these days. Thoughts of masks, mandates, and inter-office mail delivery. I'm thinking about students, staff, and sanitizers. I worry about families, food, and first aid equipment. I'll be honest, it's a lot. 

We have worked so hard to be ready for our students to return to in-person learning since we last saw them in March. So much has happened since then in our world. So much is continuing to happen in our world. It feels like a lot. 

This week I was listening to a podcast by George Couros (@gcouros), and he related one of his favorite stories from Stephen Covey's book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." In the book, Covey describes what he calls "a mini-paradigm shift" as he shared this experience on a New York City subway: 

Suddenly a man and his children entered the subway car. The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed. The man sat down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people's papers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next to me did nothing. 

It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, "Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more? 

The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, "Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either." 

And just in case you think moments like that happen only to people like Covey, a world-renowned speaker, and consultant, consider this moment from very early in my own teaching career. You know, the time when I knew everything there is to know about teaching, while only in my second year in the profession. 

I can still vividly remember it as if it happened yesterday. I was collecting homework in a very public way. Asking students to bring it to me at my desk while they were busy working on another assignment. This particular child came up empty-handed, a regular occurrence as I recall, and when I asked where the homework was, there was no answer. 

I then proceeded to publicly and loudly scold him for the fact that he didn't have his homework, stating aloud that he usually didn't have his homework and further wondering for everyone in the room to hear if he cared enough about his education to do his homework. Finally, I asked him, not in an inside voice, if he had a good reason for not doing his homework. To this day, I still get a pit in my stomach when I see his face as he delivered this answer to me: 

"My little brother ran away from home last night, and so we went out looking for him." 

Whether you're Stephen Covey on a New York City subway, a second-year teacher in Chicago, or someone just trying to put one foot in front of the other during a global health pandemic, I urge us all to give as much grace as we can. Give grace to each other and give grace to yourself. 

In twenty-five years as a professional educator, I've never taught anywhere but a classroom with students physically in front of me... until this summer. As an instructor at the University of Vermont, I taught a graduate course from my basement. And I will be honest, as I was delivering my lessons to my computer, I really struggled because I felt like I was giving my students less than my very best. I couldn't interact with my students as I was used to, there was no back and forth between students, and looking someone in the eye virtually is not even remotely close to doing it in person. I have a real sense of what our teachers are worried about. 

In fourteen-plus years as a dad, I've never had to worry about multiple days of the week when my own children would be home, besides the summer months. We have made checklists and schedules, tried out routines and scenarios, and still, there will be gaps. I have a real sense of what our families are worried about. 

As we start this new school year, my hope is that we can extend as much grace to others and to ourselves as we can. Faculty and staff are working as hard as they can - and there will still be things we miss. Families are working as hard as they can - and there will still be mistakes made. It's important that we offer each other the benefit of the doubt, as we rarely, if ever, know what others are going through. 

With so much going on that is beyond our control, the best we can offer each other, and ourselves, is the benefit of the doubt that the mistakes we make are well intended and won't happen again. 

That is the gift of grace. 

Photo courtesy of www.fpcnorfolk.org