You Can't Do That on Zoom

On Wednesday, October 27, the 10th Rowland Foundation Conference was held at the University of Vermont. The keynote speaker this year was Carla Shalaby from the University of Michigan School of Education. Dr. Shalaby's presentation title was "Love and Learning Freedom: Practicing Community in the Classroom." She was engaging, provocative, thoughtful, and challenging. I had tears in my eyes as her presentation ended. 

Her work gave me pause as I reflected on all the issues of compliance that we emphasize in schools. In a push for more freedom in our buildings, not a free-for-all, Dr. Shalaby offered that we need to care more about the people in our classrooms, not just the curriculum. We must make every attempt to find humanness in our classrooms, that is visible to all eyes that are watching us. My favorite quote of the keynote, the one that caused the most contemplation, was this: 

The students that are the most non-compliant can teach us the most. Their sufferings and screams are a warning to the rest of us. It's something we cannot see unless we look through their eyes. 

It feels like now, a lot of our students are asking us to look through their eyes. A lot of our students are giving us warnings, some subtle, some not-so-subtle. A lot of our students, and our adults, are hurting under the weight of expectations of schools during this pandemic. We exist in education to serve our students, and we need to give our adults everything they need to be their best professional selves. 

Perhaps though, just as important to me was the chance to see people again in person. In-person. There were hugs, handshakes, and high-fives. There were long embraces, deep conversations, and meaningful exchanges. We sat on the floor, stood and talked, worked together at tables. We were in person. 

I met people at this conference that I've only interacted with on Twitter for the first time, which is not just social media for celebrities. As Mike Martin, the Executive Director of the Rowland Foundation, told me years ago when we were serving together as colleagues: "Twitter is a way for us to connect with others based on the merit of the ideas." So many people I've learned from and with right here in Vermont, I've never met before. I talked to them that day at the conference. We were in person. 

And high praise to UVM. They got it right. We were all required to show proof of vaccination and to wear masks the entire time. And that did not take away one iota of the joy that I felt and observed at the Davis Center. I was not the only one hugging. I was not the only one shaking hands. I was not the only one giving high-fives. There was no Rowland Conference last year, and rightfully so. But we all missed it, and we made up for the lost time in whatever way we could. 

Lori Lisai picked up on this during the day with the following tweet: 

It was a fantastic day for intense reflection and deep discomfort from Dr. Shalaby's keynote, bringing our awareness to systems that are not serving our students. And it would have been easy to lose ourselves in that work, were it not for the fact that we were in person with others throughout the state of Vermont, committed to disrupting these systems with us. We are better together. 

We've made it work since March of 2020, cobbled together through electronic means, platforms, and networks. We've learned from afar, worked from afar, and connected from afar. The patchwork of relationships without being in person was the best that we could do given the circumstances. 

But there is absolutely nothing in the world that can replicate or replace a hug. Nothing. 

Photo Courtesy of @RowFn (Lori Lisai)

We Can't Talk to Each Other That Way

When I first started my teaching career on the Near West Side of Chicago, there were many, many things I had to learn about being a good educator. One of my earliest lessons came less than a month into my fledgling career when I completely mishandled a phone call from a parent. I can't remember the name of the parent nor the child, just the feeling that I blew it. I walked across the hall to talk to my unofficial mentor teacher, shared my experience, and asked for some advice. It was simple: Listen more. 

At the time, I was not even twenty-two years old. As you might expect, I thought I knew it all. When in fact, I knew very little. I did need to listen more. 

I genuinely believe that my milestones have helped me in my professional world through each stage of my life. The young teacher who blew that first phone call that day was single, with no children, and very few responsibilities outside of the walls of that school building. Years later, I would marry, and I now have children of my own. Learning to navigate the balance (or lack thereof) of family, children, and work has given me insight into and empathy for the lives of others. 

So when I played phone tag earlier this week with a parent, I wanted to be mindful of all that. I know the reality of the Delta variant as we have returned to school has wreaked havoc on everyone. When we finally connected, I wanted to be sure that I remembered that lesson from when I was a very young teacher. Listen more. 

And I did. I listened to this parent's story, and I agreed with almost everything this parent was saying. Yes, it's incredibly frustrating to send children home if they have only one symptom. Yes, we know this means children will miss school. Yes, our staff is struggling to return the volume of phone calls, which is hard for families. Yes, sometimes there is the student version of events, and sometimes there is the adult version of events. We agreed on almost everything that was said. 

Here is where we diverged. In the professional world of this parent, the boss at their workplace wants employees to listen, even when those on the phone are rude and disrespectful, to allow the caller to vent. When the venting is done, the employee is to then connect the caller with their supervisor. That doesn't work for me. 

Yes, we are a public school. Yes, we are in the community to serve. Yes, we welcome any and all students through our doors. And when we welcome our students, we welcome their families as well. 

No, that does not entitle anyone to speak rudely or disrespectfully to our staff. In fairness, I do not expect our staff to speak rudely or disrespectfully either. We earn the respect of our community through our service and our professionalism. We earn the respect of our community through listening to ideas that are different than our own. We earn the respect of our community by having hard conversations, especially when we don't agree. 

And, we set appropriate boundaries to acknowledge that when we are not our best selves, we should take a break and try again later. That is healthy. That promotes positive relationships with two people who do not share the same perspective. That ensures that we don't say something we may regret later. 

There are too many examples in our world of people who are talking past each other. We commit to healthy and respectful relationships in our district. Sometimes that means saying no. Sometimes that means taking a break. Sometimes that means walking away. Especially now, we are all feeling the stress and pressure of the current moment. 

As long as we always come back and try again because we are all in this together. 

Photo courtesy of www.azquotes

Humble and Kind

Admittedly, I am not a huge country music fan. And yet, there are some songs that I do really love to listen to. One was so inspirational that I wrote a blog post about it. So I guess you would have to say this is the second time that the words in a country music song have caused me to want to write. 

According to Wikipedia, it was written by Lori McKenna and first released by Tim McGraw in January 2016. The song won "Best Country Song" at the 59th Grammy Awards, "Video of the Year" at the 2016 CMT Music Awards, "Song of the Year" at the 2016 CMA Awards, and "Country Song of the Year" at the 2016 American Music Awards. Finally, it has been certified platinum and has reached number one on both the Canadian and American country music charts. 

I'm not even sure where or when I heard it first, but it has been a mainstay in my iPhone playlist ever since. Yes, my own children roll their eyes when it starts playing, but I hear them humming along. Once in a while, I even hear a lyric or two escape from their lips. They'll absolutely deny this, of course!

Humility and kindness are two things that are in desperate need these days. The reality is that school this year is so much harder than it was last year. One of the reasons I love being in educational leadership is that I don't have all the answers. That love is being tested. We are in such a reactive mode that it feels more like a game of whack-a-mole than thoughtful, deliberate leadership. 

We lurch from one crisis to the next, and I wonder if the next phone call I receive will be telling me that we have another positive case in our district. Once that call comes in, the first questions are, "What grade?" and "Are there close contacts?" The answers to both of those questions will determine our next steps and how many students and teachers will quarantine as a result. 

OK - I said that humility is desperately needed these days. I'll start: I don't have all the answers. I have found myself needing to be more empathetic than ever when a parent calls me, frustrated that their child has been sent home (again). I rely on active listening as I can in those moments, trying to be honest about what I'm hearing that parent say and repeating their frustrations. When parents get off the phone with me, I'm proud that they feel heard, even if they disagree with what I'm saying. And I'll return to where I started; I don't have all the answers. 

I also mentioned that we need kindness. During my classroom visits last week, at least four adults in my building stopped me to tell me how hard their professional (and I'm guessing their personal) world feels. After they described how challenging things were, I asked them, "What can I do?" None of them were able to articulate a tangible step I could take on their behalf. 

I began serving in education more than twenty-five years ago, hoping to make a difference in the lives of children, and now in leadership, for adults as well. I see my colleague superintendents doing contact tracing, substitute teaching, and in some cases, mowing lawns. We are trying to do our part to make the worlds we are responsible for a little bit better for the adults, who are trying to do their part to make their students' worlds a little bit better. 

It's a two-way street. Humility begets more humility. Kindness begets more kindness. Take away our titles, and we are all just humans, putting our pants on, one leg at a time, trying to manage our way through this mess. 

Don't take for granted the love this life gives you
When you get where you're going, don't forget turn back around
Help the next one in line
Always stay humble and kind. 

Photo courtesy of www.truenorthcf.org

The Courage of Letting Go

We are within striking distance, if not already reaching peak foliage season in the Green Mountain State. Our home is surrounded by trees in the backyard, and some have already begun shedding their leaves. I first noticed some of the changing colors in late August-early September in our yard, and shortly after that, some began falling. We have plenty of more to go, but our grass is starting to show signs of the impending autumn ritual of leaves falling. 

Typically, I welcome the fall with the crisp air because it means cider doughnuts, apple picking, and post-season baseball. While my beloved Yankees bowed to the Red Sox and are no longer playing, there is still plenty of great action to watch. It is a trade-off as the days get shorter, and I know the winter is not far behind. This year though feels different. 

It's our second year of experiencing COVID in the fall, but it is so substantially harder. The Delta variant has wreaked havoc on the opening of our school year, once viewed with so much hope of normalcy. Our students, especially those not eligible for vaccines, are struggling with community spread, and that is impacting everything we are trying to do. Our focus this year is Relationships and Learning. It's tough to build relationships consistently when there are so many disruptions. 

Schools are the only places where mitigation strategies exist in our state. Despite medical experts, politicians, parents, and educators pleading with our state leadership, we continue to hear only the good news about adult vaccinations. Schools are being offered many testing strategies that we do not have the human capacity to fully accept. It is backbreaking work, and we are being told to just make the best of it. 

And that is exactly what our employees are doing. Our employees are showing up every day. In some cases, they are not doing the same job more than once a week. Our Co-Principals are reassigning people regularly trying to staff all positions due to absences, whether those absences are the result of COVID in our building or the result of COVID in other school buildings throughout the NEK. Our employees are being told to make the best of it, and that's what they are doing. 

How? I'm honestly not sure. My best guess is that our adults are letting go of everything that is not mission-critical when it comes to their work. Some are letting go of the predictability of our students showing up every day. Some are letting go of a regular work assignment. Some are letting go of classroom visits. Some are letting go of instructional leadership. There is a lot of letting go. 

No, this is not the year we had hoped for yet. Vaccines are on the horizon but are not in the arms of our five to eleven-year-olds yet. We don't quite know what the future holds. Our employees can't look there yet, since their focus must be the unpredictable nature of day-to-day. 

So if you see, know, or love someone who works in a school building, please say thank you. Maybe even give them a hug if they're open to it. They've let go of so much to make these first seven weeks. There is so much they cannot change, and every day there are bright eyes behind those masks, yearning for connection and stability. While this year has been nothing like we wanted, it's demonstrated something that I've come to know as a certainty in twenty-five years of serving in education. 

To serve in education takes courage, regardless of the role. It involves a vulnerability that I cannot explain unless you've stood in front of a classroom and tried to teach a lesson. Or unless you've sat one on one with a child who needed a moment. Or unless you've sat in a classroom as an instructional leader, observing the lesson from the perspective of the teacher and the students. Or unless you've needed to call a parent whose child needed to go home. To serve in education take courage, regardless of the role. 

Never more so than in a pandemic. 

Photo courtesy of www.emilysquotes.com

Who Shares Your Joy?

When I was five years old, I took my first trip ever on an airplane. We have family that lives in a suburb of Chicago, and My Dad and I went to visit them. It was my first of many times at New York's LaGuardia Airport, and aboard an American Airlines McDonnell-Douglas Super 80, we flew to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. I was hooked from the moment I stepped out of the car and into the airport, let alone once I was on the plane itself.

Of course, this was before September 11, so I was allowed to go up to the cockpit during the flight. I was presented with the customary wings, pilot's hat, and other trinkets that I can't remember now. It was magical. I loved every single minute of it. 

That love has stayed with me well into my adult life. I am what most would call an aviation geek. I know the three-letter codes for most, if not all domestic, airports in the United States. I can usually identify the type of plane in the air while looking at it from the ground. Our home is adjacent to the approach path to Burlington International Airport if runway 33 is in use. Finally, when we lived in our first house, and My Wife needed to work with a client with some peace and quiet, I was only too happy to take Our Boys to the BTV to watch the "men with the sticks" as they marshaled planes into their gates. 

Over the years, my family has gifted me flight lessons. Sightseeing flights, practice flights, even a "chunk" of flight hours after I earned my dissertation from my entire extended family. When I look back to the first entry in my pilot logbook, the year is 2006. That changed drastically this past Valentine's Day. 

The gift I received from My Wife was not more lessons per se; the gift I received was the time to earn a private pilot's license. She did a substantial amount of research and found Learn to Fly VT and my flight instructor Bob Desmarais. Beginning in April of this year, I was gifted the time to pursue my dream. 

From the first time flying, more than thirty-two years ago, I always wanted to fly and learn how to fly. I never wanted to be a commercial airline pilot; there was too much time away from family. And I often talked myself out of actually pursuing a pilot's license by making excuses about cost, but mainly about the time, it would take. My Wife found the time for me. 

I would fly on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings as often as I could. There were weeks when I missed one or both of my lessons due to family conflicts, or sometimes Bob could not fly. But I kept at it. 

After months of hard work, this past Thursday, September 30, was a milestone. The lesson began with three maneuvers called "touch-and-go." That is when the plane touches down on the runway, we immediately take off again to practice another landing. After the third landing, I announced on the local frequency "full stop," meaning we were not going up in the air again. At least not right away. 

Bob turned to me in the plane and said, "I think you're ready for your solo flight. Do you think you're ready?" 

After a pause, I responded, "I absolutely am!" 

While I taxied the plane over to the fuel pumps, Bob reminded me of a critical part of landing a plane: "There are no points off for a go-around. If you are landing and it doesn't feel right, go back up in the air and try again." There's a lot of wisdom in that statement that goes far beyond aviation. 

Bob prepared to get out at the fuel pumps, and before he did, he asked if I had any last questions. I responded, "When you get to the observation area, will you check to make sure your radio works so that if I need to, I can talk to you?" 

"I absolutely will. You've got this." With that, he unplugged his headset, stepped out of the plane, and shut the door. I was alone in the cockpit of the airplane. 

True to his word, when he reached the observation area, Bob raised his radio to his mouth and said, "Can you hear me?" His voice was crystal clear in my headset. When I responded, "I sure can," he told me, "Then off you go." 

I taxied the plane to the active runway, lined up in the center, and after a deep breath, pushed the throttle all the way in. When I reached the appropriate speed, I pulled back gently on the yoke, and I was airborne! I climbed to the correct altitude and entered the pattern for landing. I landed the plane successfully three times that day, all by myself. Here's my second landing, recorded by Bob, which I'm proudest of: 

I am a solo pilot! I can fly by myself, without a flight instructor! 

The five-year-old in me was so full of joy that day. But there was someone who was perhaps more excited than I was: My Wife. I could not wait to call her and tell her what I did or show her my landings. The excitement in her voice was palpable.

This coming Friday, October 8, is the anniversary of the last first date either of us has ever had. Twenty-one years ago, we spent more than three hours at Bruna's Ristorante, a small restaurant in the Italian Village section of Chicago. We've been together ever since. 

The life we've made over the past two decades is dotted with ups and downs. It's not cliche to say that Michal Gendron Ricca halves my sorrow and more than doubles my joy because that is the truth. She sees potential when I see a brick wall. She sees possibilities when I see limits. She sees my dreams more clearly than I do. 

The five-year-old in me is so grateful I finally took the time. The five-year-old in me was elated when I left the runway and landed safely back on it. The five-year-old in me is so grateful I was given the gift of time by someone who shares my dreams. 

This solo flight is for you, Beautiful Girl.