Happy Year New

This time of year I find it especially helpful to take a moment and reflect as we prepare to enter a new year. Many of us have experienced significant changes during 2010, personally and professionally. Whether these changes have been for the better or worse, it’s important to remember and reflect. It seems that hindsight is always clearer than when the path was ahead. Is reflecting enough?

Recently while ringing the bell at Walmart (thanks for setting this up, Jani) I thanked a contributor and said, “Merry Christmas” to him. This older gentleman replied, “and a Happy Year New.” At first this struck me as being odd, but I wonder if it was a slip of the cliché or a restating of it in a new context. I’d like to think that he was telling me to have a happy year and make it new: to move beyond my trials of 2010 and make it a happy year. To do this I need to do more than simply reflect. I needed to rethink and use my 20/20 hindsight.

The root of reflection is improvement, not just remembrance, so reflection can lead to a new and different coming year. To make a year brand new, then, we need to identify what needs to be different in 2011. To honestly answer this question we need to begin with the individual. It’s too easy to point out reasons why things can’t change – it’s much more difficult to create the positive energy necessary for creating a year that’s new.

We must be the change we wish to see in the world. Mahatma Gandhi

Through my reflections of 2010, I’ve been truly impressed with many of the initiatives created by all of you to make AAK and the North Country better than it was in 2009. Most recently – the backpack challenge, CSEA’s Neighborhood Center donations, food pantry donations, InterAct helping with the Holiday Baskets and Holiday Mail for Hero’s, mittens and scarves from the Teachers Association, and bell ringing for the Salvation Army. I’ve also heard that many of you have helped to undecorate local giving trees so that families can have a good Christmas. Your generosity is overwhelming. I’m sure that Ghandi would be impressed. But what would you change about 2010, if you could, to make 2011 a new year?

I’d like to regale you with a personal story. Ten years ago my health was not good, my teaching position was eliminated and my wife’s teaching position wasn’t a tenure track. I was fortunate enough to be able to retain a job, but it was at our high school. After my second week of teaching that September, I visited with Mrs. Chorba, my principal and mentor. I asked her to find a way to get me back to the middle school. As we discussed my dissatisfaction she had discovered that my request came from the fact that I found the climate much different from what I was comfortable with. Her words cut me to the core, “If you don’t like the climate and ‘feeling’ of the school, then what can you do to change it?” This sage advice was the beginning of a personal realization that I could have a significant impact on others and my surroundings. Shortly after this, I began working with the policies and procedures at the high school and district levels. It dawned on me that the only time I felt like I couldn’t enact positive change was when I told myself that I couldn’t. Over the course of the six years that followed, I realized that sometimes change is good. What once seemed uncomfortable to me ended up being a tremendous experience. I came to learn that the high school was filled with wonderful teachers and students whom I learned a great deal from. I enjoyed working there and I am a better educator because of my experiences there. As I now reflect on that long-ago adventure, I’m unsure if the school climate was influenced positively by me after my conversation with Mrs. Chorba, or influenced negatively by me before my conversation.

I’ve been asking you throughout the last few years to make a positive impact on the lives of children. You have done so and then some. You have influenced more than just your students, you have made an impact on me. I am genuinely impressed by you and I challenge you to own your day and make the new year truly new.

Merry Christmas and a Happy Year New!