Stay Present

I can’t wait to get the 2022-2023 school year started and enjoy the journey we are all going to take together.  In fact, before we left on summer break in June this past year, I shared with our staff that I can’t remember being so excited about the start of school…and we hadn’t even left the building yet!  I’ll be honest, that excitement has only grown over the summer.  I think there are a lot of reasons why I feel that way, and after a conversation I had this past week, I think I know why.

The last two weeks have been filled with preparation and learning.  August is like new years for teachers – we turn the page to the start of a new school year and set big goals.  During one session our counselor, Mrs. Nieto was talking about practicing mindfulness as adults and with our students.  Part of being a leader is being able to self regulate, which starts with having tools to pause and breathe.  When sharing she said something along these lines, I know she will excuse me if it’s not verbatim:

Anxiety lives in the future, regret lives in the past, but being mindful helps us to remain present.

Wow, right?  I’m not sure I can think of a better sentiment to describe how I feel going into this year.  As we begin our first post-pandemic school year, I can see how all of these three pieces, likely, reside in all of us.  It’s easy to look back on the challenges we’ve endured as a community these past few years.  It’s equally easy to be nervous about what’s around the next corner that could throw us for a loop.  But, what a fantastic idea to put both of those thoughts to the side and focus on what we have right now, a brand new year with endless possibilities for adventures, experiences, and growth.  That sounds like something I can get behind 🙂

AMPed

In one of our morning sessions during the first week back for staff on Wednesday, one of our teachers was talking about Dan Pink’s book When, that talks about the secrets of timing. I read it when it came out a few years ago, but I wanted to revisit the ideas so I decided to listen to a podcast this morning on my run that featured an interview with Dan Pink. The interview ended up being more about the chronology of his books, which was nice because it allowed me to think about an idea from one of his previous books, Drive. In his book, Pink talks about the three components of intrinsic motivation. As I thought about these three factors, my mind went to two different places: how do I feel about these three factors as they relate to my current position, and how does our staff feel about them. First things first, I’ll start with me:

Autonomy – I feel like I have a good deal of autonomy, or the ability to direct my work. I recognize that our school is part of a much larger organization, and there are going to be somethings that aren’t in my control. There are policies set in place for the greater good of the district, but within that space I feel I have a significant amount of decision making power to move the work forward. Based on what I learned about my personality type a few days ago, this is probably the most important aspect to me. I like to have some direction, but room to make decisions within that structure.

Mastery – While I absolutely have the desire to improve, I wouldn’t mark my current situation as high in this area. I think that, as a larger organization, I don’t have the opportunities to grow my skillsets unless I go out of my way to find those opportunities, and in most cases, take care of them off the clock. I’m motivated by the desire to get better, but my job/profession doesn’t build that regularly in to my work day.

Purpose – I think it’s safe to say that anyone who has committed their life to education feels a great sense of purpose. The impact we get to make in the lives of hundreds of students each year is almost overwhelming. I believe in what we do, particularly the parts that we have autonomy to decide – example: The Leader in Me.

If I could add one more aspect to this list of motivators it would be community. For those of us who have worked at schools, or in jobs, where that sense of community was absent, it’s clear to see why people choose to leave. I know that at times our sense of community is tested, or strained, but at the end of the day, this sense of belonging is what underpins all of these other areas.

I’ll be honest, I’m intensely curious about how our staff feels about these three areas. I created a super short anonymous survey and sent it in this week’s memo to everyone, and I looking forward to hearing how folks are feeling after one week back. I hope this data will give me information that I can reflect on. After all, what matters most is that our entire team feels like this is the place for them to grow, provide impact, and feel like they belong.

#conditproud

Dan

being a phoenix

I’m still reading Do Hard Things by Steve Magness and I’m still making notes because as an educator, and runner, his ideas really speak to me. However, my reading share this week is from social media. July is generally a magical month for me in general – vacation, Tour de France, Fridays off, etc. But, this summer was extra special because the Track & Field World Championships were help at Hayward Field in Oregon. Pretty cool to see the world’s best compete in an iconic stadium in the states, but I digress. Donavan Brazier is a US 800 meter specialist, he is, in fact, the defending world champ at that distance. Last week he failed to qualify for the final. I love lots of things about sports, among them is how athletes deal with success and setbacks. I think that, in either/both cases, it reveals quite a bit about our character. Anyhow, Donavan sent the following message out on Instagram after his world championship came to an end.

If you’re unfamiliar with mythical creature, a phoenix is said to rise from its own ashes and to be reborn. I love his post. You either roll over and give up, or you put the work in and commit to returning to greatness. A quick google search yielded the fact that this was, in fact, a quote from Deng Ming-Dao, a Chinese American author, artist, philosopher, teacher and martial artist. While I would have liked Donvan to cite his source, I’ll let it slip this time.

What does this have to do with us? Lots. From a campus perspective, I think that powers far beyond our control has attempted to turn us to ash these past few years – pandemic, virtual learning, etc. I feel like we are ready for a rebirth, better and stronger than ever. On a more micro level, we work with young people everyday and some of them, seemingly, turn to ash regularly. Being reborn a phoenix is about being resilient, which is something we all need to be. I’m looking forward to seeing how Donavan does back on the track, but more importantly, I can’t wait to see the work we get to do this year with all of our phoenixes, uh, I mean kids 🙂

#conditproud

Dan