Sometimes work is tough. We have tough days, tough hours, tough meetings, and tough conversations. It isn't always fun. Nobody likes conflict and sometimes things happen that make you wonder if it is really worth getting up and putting on that nice tie and pretty Joseph A. Banks suit to get insulted, slammed, and put down.
Yes... sometimes that is exactly what happens and we all hate it.
In the past few years, I’ve stumbled upon articles and books that have made me really dig down and think about my work, my life, and my approach to challenges. At the end of this entry, I have listed for your enjoyment Ten Paradoxical Commandments from one such book written by Kent Keith.
However, that is not what I’m writing to you today about. I am writing about what I see as a real challenge that we have in schools. This challenge is that schools; public, private, and charter, are facing a sort of identity crisis. We are struggling like adolescent kids trying to figure out what we are and we have so many people telling us we should be this, that, or the other. There is differentiated instruction, 21st Century Skills, budgetary items, homework, technology, professional development, meetings, etc, etc, pulling us in different directions. Yes, I realize that I have placed many of these stresses in your lives.
The fact is that we have a set of young, impressionable, bright-eyed clients that don’t really care what we are. To them we are THEIR school and they depend on us.
We are expected to deliver the best to them that we can offer – despite the critics. No matter what we are asked to do, we must do the best for those kids in our rooms who are waiting with hope and fear and excitement and boredom and interest and … (well, you get the point) … we must do the best for them despite the issues. No matter what happens they deserve the best education we can provide.
Today I was venting my frustrations about the many issues we face and someone with a voice of reason piped in and reminded me that tomorrow the kids will come to school and they deserve the best education we can offer. It does not matter what the adults do or say. They deserve the best. (Thanks, Kate.)
The type of environment I’m extolling is described throughout the Essential Elements of a Standards-Based middle-level program. More precisely, we educators need to be developmentally responsive to our students’ needs. AAK has been tested on this principle with the School to Watch designation and it’s important for us to rely on this when times are difficult. You do deliver an excellent education to our clients and AAK is a proven model for others. I am comforted by knowing this even when things at work seem like work.
Enjoy the weekend,
Jamie
The Ten Paradoxical Commandments
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
Taken from the book, "Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments, Finding Personal Meaning in a Crazy World" by author Kent Keith
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