On Being Brave

More than a year ago, My Family and I took a trip to Hawaii. It was planned long before we even considered moving away from Vermont. It was planned for our first post-COVID trip as a follow-up to Thailand, which we completed in the spring of 2019. It was a wonderful family vacation, full of disconnection from the real world, playing cards, and being lazy on the beach. Just the four of us. 

We did try our hand at surfing because when in Hawaii... and I couldn't do it. I tried twice, once in Honolulu and once while we were in Maui. I really couldn't do it. No matter how hard I tried. I needed to have the correct balance, or feet positioning, or something. It didn't happen. I was up briefly for a few seconds in Maui, and the organization that was with us in the water got this picture of me. 

Moments later, I fell off the board and was in the water. But I was up, standing briefly. I was surfing. 

The entire time I was surfing, in both places in Hawaii, I was thinking about this quote that I saw from Lan Phan, the CEO of Community of Seven: 

Photo courtesy of Lan Phan on LinkedIn

While I never was genuinely successful surfing, I did see a lot of bravery this year: 

• My own children started a new school, in a new state, with great academic success, both earning honors in their respective grades. 
  
  
• Our older son Patrick tried out for a new AAU basketball team, and while he is the shortest on the court, that has not daunted him in the least. 
  

Patrick is Number 10

• Our younger son Brendan picked up a lacrosse stick for the first time in his life in 8th grade and earned minutes on the varsity team. 
  

Brendan is Number 26

It's really something to be inspired and awed by your own children. 

I've also seen a lot of bravery in East Greenwich Public Schools: 

• EG had a Presidential Scholar named by the United States Department of Education, Guy Sanchez. This type of commitment to academics means welcoming failure and being brave in the face of the academic unknown.
  
  

  

  Photo Courtesy of EG News

  
  
• East Greenwich High School was named a National Unified Champion School, becoming the only district in Rhode Island with a high school and middle school earning this distinction. This honor is bestowed only where an inclusive student environment can be documented. This bravery speaks for itself. 
  
  

  

  Photo Courtesy of EG News

  
  
• Other acts of bravery are as varied as the humans that work and come to school in our district. I've seen adults advocating for our students. I've seen our students standing up for each other. I've seen our leadership team advocate for what was needed to ensure our Strategic Plan All Means All is a reality for every child. I've seen our School Committee and Town Council collaborate on projects and budgets. 

None of these things would have been possible without the bravery of the people involved. Bravery takes the courage to step outside your comfort zone. Bravery means embracing discomfort. Bravery means there is no guarantee of success. 

You may suck. You may fall off the surfboard into the water. You may end up a Presidential Scholar. Or somewhere in between. 

We'll never know unless we're brave enough to try. 

It's Not Enough to be Right

Have you ever had a disagreement with one of your children? Or a family member? Or a friend? The kind in which you know you're right - I mean, you know you're right - and the other person is wrong? 

Both of Our Children are athletes, and both compete beyond the school sports schedule. Weekends are a blur of schedules, carpools, and road trips. There are e-mail messages, text threads, and apps that inform the reality of where the Riccas go and are on weekends. Occasionally, there's a miscommunication, and someone ends up at the wrong place at the right time or vice versa. 

We've had this running disagreement about Memorial Day weekend. The family calendar in our house (aka The Bible) says that there's a basketball tournament. The e-mail the coach sent for May says the team is free that weekend. The parent text thread is mixed, and of course, the young man in question is unsure. Or at least he was, until this past Monday night. 

He came into our bedroom and was prompted by My Wife, "Isn't there something you want to tell your father?"

"Oh yesssss," he held that last syllable. "As it turns out, there IS a tournament Memorial Day weekend. Coach told us tonight at practice." Followed by a huge smile and a happy dance around the confines of the room. Gleefully, he came around my side of the bed to gloat. 

And I missed it all. 

I was fumbling for my phone, furiously finding the GMail app and opening up my inbox. I was searching for the folder where I keep all his basketball e-mail messages for scheduling. I found the message I wanted and turned the phone toward him so he could read it. Undaunted, he kissed me good night and pranced out of the room. 

"You missed that whole thing, Ricca," My Wife told me. "Because you had to be right." 

Guilty as charged. 

We place too much emphasis on being right. I place too much emphasis on being right. And in doing so, we risk missing smiles, dancing, and glee. More importantly, however, we risk missing the fact that there's a human on the other side of our desire to be right. A human who is like us in more ways than we often admit. A human who laughs when something is funny, who cries when something is sad, and bleeds when their skin is cut. 

And the situation I described to you was low stakes. My lack of attention to My Son didn't give him pause or stop him from celebrating. I was the one who missed out. 

We've all been in higher-stakes situations. Ones where the collective adrenaline is running high. Ones in which there are complex realities to face. Ones in which there are serious consequences, depending on who is right or wrong. And still, even in those moments, we are all humans. 

That's hard. It's really hard to do. It's really hard to do even when our world is not as polarized as it is today. And yet, that's the work of being human. It's recognizing the humanity in others. In those who don't share our opinions, values, or beliefs. In those who don't look like us, love like us, or behave like us. 

They're still human. We're still human. I'm still human. 

Wishing you all a wonderful Memorial Day three-day weekend. I have a basketball tournament to go to. 

I Want A Do Over

"I want a do-over! This is the worst Mother's Day ever!" While I cannot remember the exact year, those words were spoken to me by My Wife on the second Sunday in May. Let me explain. 

We were living in Vermont, and while the calendar said it was May, it felt less like May and more like March. And it was raining. And we were outdoors watching our oldest son Patrick play soccer. It was youth soccer, a local recreational team. 

Side note: anyone with any scheduling power at all, ever, make it a point to give everyone Mother's Day off. There's no need to play recreation anything on Mother's Day. The world will continue to rotate rapidly on its axis, trust me. 

So we sat huddled together in winter coats and boots while the rain fell. Our team was short players because it was youth recreational soccer, it was in the 50s, and it was raining. And it was Mother's Day. Our team was losing and losing badly. We had no substitute players, and the coach was shuffling positions to keep everyone warm (if that was possible) in the rain. 

At one point, the coach called Patrick's name and said something we couldn't hear. We watched our son go from the striker position to goalie. Patrick had never played goalie. Not once. 

Our team was tired. It was raining. It was cold. And they were overmatched. Patrick gave up two quick goals, but he was not deterred. As he went to make his next save, one of his feet hit a wet spot, and he fell down as the ball went into the net. He stood up, put his head in his hands, and his shoulders started to shake. It was clear that he was crying. 

"I want a do-over! This is the worst Mother's Day ever!" And she was right. 

Sometimes that's what we need. A do-over. Kids get that; sometimes, we struggle to accept that reality as adults. I was leaving Eldredge after Office Hours and saw a group of kiddos playing boxball, or at least what I know as boxball. Sometimes it's called Four Squares. Whatever you call it, I saw a sequence that ended in a disagreement about where the ball bounced. Two students came together and pointed in different places where they both thought it hit the ground. A third came over and said, "Let's just do it over." And so they did. It was that simple. 

Another way to look at a do-over is to give grace to another person. I received an e-mail message from someone this week regarding another message sent earlier in the day. This second message closed with a single sentence: "Please offer me grace." My response was equally simple: "Don't give it a second thought. Grace." 

However you slice it, our shared humanity demands that we give each other do-overs. Or grace. Or the space to make mistakes with amends. 

A lesson that our kids know well. 

I Blew It

I clicked on the e-mail without looking carefully. I wonder if you can see it. It looked like this: 

I did not notice the third "o" in Google, thought that my password was compromised, and clicked on the link to "Take action." Fortunately, for me, once I clicked on that button, I realized that it was a phony e-mail. I closed the window, and reported it immediately to Dr. Steven Arnoff, our Director of Technology. It was indeed a "phishing test." And I failed. 

KnowBe4 is the company we partner with to avoid making mistakes like these; like exactly the one I made. The company's mission is to enable employees "to make smarter security decisions, everyday." I pride myself on being a thoughtful digital citizen, and work hard to spot messages that are clearly looking for my login credentials. And yet, on March 30, 2023, a little after ten in the morning, I goofed. 

Dr. Arnoff was quick to point out my error, and helped me look for other clues to not make the same mistake again. I often tell people, I make plenty of mistakes, but rarely do I make the same mistake twice. Stay tuned, as I doubt this will be the last phishing test e-mail that comes to my inbox this year!

This experience though reminded me that we all make mistakes, despite our best efforts. It's what we do after those mistakes that makes the difference. I didn't share any of my passwords and closed the browser once I knew I had taken a misstep. I reached out to Dr. Arnoff and just this past week, received a message about doing some refresher training as a result: 

I completed my training, and won't let an extra "o" go by the next time. 

I share all this because none of us are perfect. We all make mistakes. It's widely understood and sometimes trite, but nevertheless must be accepted. Even in the heat of the moment. Our world is full of examples of people who make snap decisions, based on momentary lapses of judgement. The more decent and kind we can be to each other when mistakes happen, the better off we will all be. 

Clearly, there are some mistakes from which there is no going back. Consider an athlete that had committed to play a sport at a Division I college lost his spot, after posting something on social media that included a racially inappropriate word. That position on that team is gone; but the work to repair those relationships has just begun. 

Nobody is perfect. No relationship is perfect. Certainly we see that everyday in our lives. Which reminds me of the beautiful line from Good Will Hunting, when Sean Maguire, played by Robin Williams, tells Will Hunting, played by Matt Damon: 

You're not perfect sport, and let me save you the suspense: this girl you've met she's not perfect either. 

But the question is whether or not you're perfect for each other.

We're going to blow it now and then. The real questions are how to we respond to it and what do we do to repeat it from happening again. It's what it takes to be human. 

Photo courtesy of https://www.securitysales.com/columns/reasons-failure-lessons-learn/