What I Do All Summer

Today’s post is for every principal who spends summer hearing others ask, eyebrow lifted:  “You… have to work through the summer?”  Surprise.  Disbelief.  

Yes.  I do. 

Many principals have a contract that provides about twenty vacation days over the course of a year, which, coupled with a few holidays and some careful planning, can amount to a summer break of three weeks or so.  The rest of the time, we’re on duty.

So, yes:  I work through the summer.

What’s next, then, is always:

“Wellll….. What do you do?”

Believe it or not, a principal-working-in-the-summer is pretty busy.  Here are some things on my list for the next ten weeks:

Complete hiring.  I’ve done a lot of interviewing this spring, but there are still a few positions I need to fill.  This means sifting through applicable candidates, setting up interviews, bringing in a team of teachers to help with the interview process, checking references, and recommending a candidate to the Board of Education.  No quick thing, there.

Facilities.  We have about fifteen teachers who have to move to a new classroom next year, for various reasons—but suffice it to say there are a lot of boxes being schlepped from one place to another.   Other things happen with (and to) the building over the summer:  Alarms are tested, floors are scrubbed, furniture is ordered and replaced, and the whole place is cleaned from top to bottom.  It’s not me waxing the floors, of course—but I check in with the custodians often so I can support them they take proverbial Q-tips to every nook and cranny of our school.

Summer school.  Students who need some extra oomph with their reading in my district have qualified to attend summer school, it takes place at my building.  Buses will come, teachers will teach, kids will learn.  So that’s happening.  I'm not in charge, but I'll help out if needed.

Finalizing student schedules.  To place students in classrooms for the upcoming school year, I spend a gazillion hours in a state of angst.

We do. 

By “we,” I mean classroom teachers, as well as all the staff who work with special education, gifted, English Language students, and related arts.  In the weeks before school ends, we think about how to best group kids on an RTI plan, with behavior challenges, with health issues.  We try to balance classes with girl/boy ratios as well as cultural and language and economic diversity.   And then—when that is done, I dig into the input from parents, which is currently living is a folder, thicker than my wrist, chock-full of notes from parents (“Please separate my child from….”  “It’s important that my child not be in a class environment that…”)

And it’s tough work, too, because it matters.  I want to get it right.  But all the while, there is a speech bubble hovering above my head reminding me that it won’t be perfect; there will be missteps and errors and many complaints.  

The whole thing—the work, the worry—takes hours.  Hours that add up to days. 

Professional Development.  For me.  I’m super-lucky to work in a district that provides principals PD all summer, and I take full advantage, attending trainings from Human Resources, Operations, Student Services, Public Relations, and everything in between.  Next week starts it off with training for the new program we’ll use for the writing and management of IEPs.  All this PD happens in a small group setting, with time to think and ask questions.  Bam.

I also dig into some good books and blog posts from people who are super-smart about teaching, learning, and instruction.  I plan ways to PD into the coming year, too—I consider conferences that might help me grow as a professional and a principal, find new resources, and study the latest thinking and research about teaching and learning.

Cleaning my office and reflecting on what I find. This summer I will tackle file folders, books, papers, and the stacks of things I’ve shoved willy-nilly into baskets and piles.  I use this time to review the past year, too—what those papers say about what we did, what we didn’t need to do, what we could do better next year. 

Re-connect with colleagues.  I’ll have phone conversations that don’t start with, “Whatcha need?”  Nor will they end in less than a minute with “Thankstalksoonbye.”

Planning.  School doors don’t open mid-August to hundreds of kids without massive amounts of planning. I plan a staff retreat, opening Leadership Team meetings, Staff meetings, parent walkthrough and curriculum night, staff photo and video sessions.  I organize a building schedule and assign staff duties.  I make a staff professional development plan for the year.  Evaluate staff input from previous surveys.  I adjust, adjust, adjust and plan, plan, plan.

Express gratitude.  I write a lot of thank you notes over the summer, and even then, I don’t get to all the people to whom I owe my appreciation.  Summer is a great time to stop and be grateful. 

Eat lunch.  Using a whole half hour.  Or more, even, if I’m feeling zany.  Sometimes, I’ll even go out to lunch, with a friend and a server and everything.

So that’s a snippet of summer. 

I love summer work.  Compared to the rest of the year, the pace is gentle; decisions are not weighty.  It’s busy, but not the kind of busy that makes my mind spin.  It's hope-full, too, because I find myself looking forward with a clear mind, fresh ideas, and renewed inspiration.

This blog post has been a luxury—to use lots of words to answer the “What do you do all summer” question.   I usually can’t go into this much detail.  Usually, when I’m asked, in the line at the deli counter or on a Saturday afternoon at the pool, I just smile and demur, “Oh… a variety of different tasks…” and leave it at that.  Because it would take too long to explain how summer will fill up and fly by.

But now you know. 

Seeking to Speak Well

When my grandfather was very ill, the doctor came in the hospital room to explain to my grandmother, my mother, and my aunt how he was responding to their medical interventions.  I was there, too, hesitant and wordless in the corner, hoping to help in some way—if only as another heart in a room full of broken ones.

We had no idea what the doctor was saying.  He talked and talked and talked, but his words were like a jumbled box of Legos—we knew they could be put together, if we really tried, and they’d amount to something legitimate.  But we didn’t try:  It was easier to let them land, scattered, and then be still.

In the end, of course, the doctor was trying to tell us that my grandfather was old and sick and dying.  On some level we understood this, even without the Lego words, but he didn’t say it.  He seemed unwilling—or, more likely, unable—to use words we could understand.  He wanted to soften the truth for us, perhaps, so he walled us behind intricate medical terminology.

We needed him to say it, though; it would have helped, because it could have taken our hope to a different place, where it could bring peace, and relief, and a long-awaited celebration of a man and his well-lived life.

Sometimes I fear we do the same in education.  The stakes aren’t as high as those of a physician standing over the grief of a dying patient’s family—not by any stretch—but we educators, too, often falter when we try speaking the truth.

Last month, at a leadership conference in Boston, one of my session’s attendees stayed afterwards to talk.  He wanted my insight after an off-the-cuff remark I’d made about the unintentional consequences of complicated conversations.  He was only in his eighth month of being a principal, and he was floundering, he thought—mostly because he struggled with sharing bad news.  The worst was when he spoke to students’ parents during discipline investigations.  We talked a long time.  He told me he got physically nauseous when preparing to call parents. “I find myself apologizing, talking quickly, contradicting myself,” he said.  “Sometimes I’ll be midway through my speech and realize the parent is confused—they have no idea what I’m trying to say.”  His instinct was to forge on, but:  “When I get to the part about consequences, and I refer to the Student Code of Conduct, it gets really serious, really fast—they are angry and shocked, as if everything I’ve just said was wasted.”

I understood his frustration.  We all do, I think.  

Later, on the plane home, I thought of three reasons educators struggle with saying really hard things to parents about their kids.

Fear of the how.  Since we never know if a parent will support us or fight us, we often don’t know how to approach our message.  Because we are well trained, we know what we should say:  We use words like “support” and “struggling” and “poor choice.”  But oftentimes those words don’t capture the difficulty or gravity of the scenario we are trying to address.

Fear that we’re wrong.  Just like the doctor who didn’t say, “Your grandfather is dying,” we often avoid telling parents tough things about their kids.  We don’t want to say, “Your child was cruel to another person today” or “His behaviors are disturbing to others” or "We don't know how to help her."  Even typing those words here makes my fingers frightened, because I’ve been so trained not to say things that may cause hurt or wrath.  We all have.  And… what if we are wrong?  What if the problem actually lies with us, and how we have connected to the child?  What if our professional judgment is off kilter? 

Fear of the response.  The colleague I spoke with explained a situation in which he had called a parent, known to be volatile and accusatory, known to defect blame to anyone and anything else, to tell her about a scuffle involving her son.  The moment he said the word “scuffle,” she interrupted him with an unstoppable rant.  In the end, he was called names (“racist,” “incompetent,” and “bully” being the most hurtful of the lot), he was threatened, and he was left holding a dead phone line.  No wonder he was scared to tell her the truth.   

So what do we do?

What should my grandfather’s doctor have done?

Nothing differently.  Not then.  He did his best.  And in the end, it was okay, because we knew he’d done his best.  That’s all we can do, no?  And as we grow our administrative skills—communication being part of the package—we get better at being simultaneously kind, honest, helpful, and concise.  After all, that is our goal, is it not?   Speak the truth, and speak it well.

Worn out by Twitter

No dispute:  Twitter can be a good venue for professional development.  It’s super-fun to find educational experts to follow—there are so many smart people in the Twitter universe, happy to offer short bits of inspiration and so, so many new ideas to implement. 

Or, wait:  So many new ideas we wish you had the time and energy to implement.

Not long ago, I found myself worn out by Twitter.  Beyond the obvious stuff—too many advertisements, too much political mumbo-jumbo—I was weary of the “professional development” part of it, too.

Yep.  I said it. 

It just felt so…  lecture-y.  Like a finger wagging at the things I should be doing.  To keep my feed clean, I had followed only prominent educator voices, but that meant it’s all I saw—many, many Tweets a day, all feeling like short little chastisements:   “We need to start…” or “If only everyone would…”  “Good teachers always…”

Of course I agree with the message of these tweets, but they felt, increasingly, like a gaggle of woodpeckers—relentless, ruthless, focused on chipping away at my confidence.  It made me feel inadequate, like I wasn’t doing anything right.  Especially on a bad day, where I felt I hadn’t done a bit of good that day, to scroll through Twitter and see my screen full of coulda-shoulda-woulda advice was like a kick in the face.  I’d think, “Is everyone else always doing awesome things?  Is every other educator out there is always offering fabulous choice books… always offering students a platform for voice… always advocating relentlessly for justice in our education system?” 

I’d wonder, Do any of these Tweeters ever have a bad day?  Are there any days they don’t trailblaze?  Are there any days they just do the best they can, and be grateful for it?  Do they ever go home exhausted and defeated? 

Resentment followed, because many of the people I followed weren’t actually doing the day-to-day work that I—and my colleagues—were trying to do.  Not every day, they weren’t.  They may have done it at some point in their careers, and when they did, they were undoubtedly excellent at the work, but they weren’t doing it now.  Not on the five thousandth rainy day of the year; not on the day there were sixteen interruptions or schedule changes; not on the day all students were bent over a Chromebook, squinting their way through yet another mandated standardized test.

I thought about taking a Twitter break, so as to give myself a rest from the judgy-ness.  Then my husband offered an alternative.  “You need to balance it out,” he said.  “For every educator you follow, find someone who isn’t an educator.  Find someone, perhaps, who tweets something super-funny every day.  Or something different or new.  Something that won’t hit you over the head with teaching and leadership stuff.”

What a great solution.  Now I follow just as many non-educator Tweets as I follow educator ones.  Comedians.  Musicians.  Chefs.  Athletes.  Bloggers and parents and artists and all sorts of people—anyone and anything that doesn’t saturate me with things I should be doing differently.   And when I find myself feeling inadequate, I just stop, because that’s when I know I’ve hit my saturation point, and it’s time for moderation. 

Social media continues to confront, contest, flummox, and frustrate me.  I haven’t yet found a place I feel comfortable in it.  As with anything, though, the answer is undoubtedly balance—lots and lots of balance.   

Dreams, Possibilities, Choices

I wanted to be a cowgirl.

No, seriously.  I did.  The real deal, too:  Gold-tipped boots and leather chaps and a button-up pastel shirt to accent my long, beautiful neck and fabulous hat. 

My father had taken me to a rodeo when I was about ten, and every detail bulges crisp in my memory: The sun precise and perfect, the sky an untouched blue.  It was the type of summer day that was a gift, all by itself, existing to make magic.  At the rodeo, I watched the cowgirls especially closely, the big hats and confident footfalls; the dusty, glittery jeans; the red lips and shimmery hair.   

On the way home, we listened to a cassette of the Dan Seals song Everything that Glitters. We sang along—my father on harmony, me on melody at the very tip-top of my lungs.  The song was about a cowboy’s lost love, which sounded melodramatic and super-awesome.   I thought I’d like being the kind of efficacious cowgirl capable of eliciting that kind of country song.

So I decided I’d go ahead and be a cowgirl.

I had a horse, which gave the whole thing some oomph.  I got home and started working to turn her from a regular old horse into a rodeo horse.  My father was kind enough to find three big medal barrels, which we placed in the pasture, just so, and I put my horse through hours of barrel-racing practice.  I saved all my money for a good hat and a bridle with shiny silver trappings.  I didn’t bother saving for a saddle—good ones were hundreds of dollars—but I sure dreamed about it.  I did my best with the creaky, dried-out saddle I actually did own, rubbing Feibing’s saddle soap over it relentlessly, hoping it would turn into a something worthy of a rodeo queen.

The dream faded, as many dreams do, and before leaving for college, I sold my horse to an Amish kid who came to pick her up with a handful of twenties underneath his hat.  It was enough money to buy me a semester of textbooks.  He was impish; I was solemn. I ached to clutch my mare’s neck and sob.  Instead, awkwardly, I asked if he wanted to buy my saddle, too.  He said no.  He leapt on, clean and graceful, and rode away, bareback, which was something I thought she’d only let me do, but he did it nonchalantly, as if my horse had always been his, which broke my heart into a shattering of pieces. 

I bet that old saddle is still in the barn somewhere.   

I’m a long, long way from being a cowgirl these days.  I’m a suburban mom and a school principal and other things, too, instead.  This isn’t a lament; it’s just a remark on growing up.  It’s the way things are. 

Dreams turn into possibilities, which turn into options, which turn into choices. 

I like to think about those early dreams, though, because the imaginings of the young are so irresistibly inspiring.   I like thinking about kids and their dreams—the potential and promises of imagination without limitations.  I wish we could bottle all those dreams into the air and release it into the earth. 

Because wouldn’t that be something to see?  What would happen if it flipped?  If our choices could match our fiercest dreams?  It's something to think about, is it not?

When On the Way Down

When I was 23, I climbed Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.  It was the hardest physical challenge I’d ever faced, and that’s saying something—I’m the daughter of a hay farmer, so I grew up hurling hay bales in the 90-degree humidity.  I was a 3-sport athlete in high school.  I have run marathons.  I have biked and run and stood on my head and all sorts of other things that tested my physical and mental stamina.

But Half Dome was something else entirely.

And the thing was, I didn’t see it coming.  At all. 

I was volunteering for an organization that supported foreign students traveling through various regions of the United States.  I was the group’s leader.  It was a Band-Aid to fix my wanderlust (and, if we’re honest, zero career prospects).  We were based in San Francisco, but spent weekends exploring the northern California region.  On this particular weekend, were set to camp in Yosemite one night, hike to Half-Dome (however high each person chose to go), camp another night, and then head back to San Francisco.

I didn’t worry one little bit.  A breeze, I thought.  I’m in good shape, I thought.  

I left camp like a warrior, march-march-march up the path.  Fierce and strong.  The hours began to lose themselves.  The air got cooler and thinner.  Often overcome by the beauty around me, I felt tired, but wasn’t intimidated—if anything, I was smugly satisfied. 

I drank through my four bottles of water, rationalizing that I’d lose the weight of carrying the water, and thus my climbing would be more efficient.  Other hikers sipped.  Not me.

March-march-march-march.  Stomp and scrap and scuffle and spit.  No rest stops. 

Others in the group faded off, turning to head down.  In the end, there were only three of us still forging on. 

And forge did I:  All the way to the precarious, mind-bending, tippytippytop. 

The views.  The views!  I rested, achy and thirsty.

And then:  The realization.  You have to go back down.  You’re eight hours in, and you are only halfway there.

And then:   It’s okay.  It will be easy.  Everyone says going up is the hard part. 

Then:  Do they say that, actually? 

As I would, I reacted quickly:  Well, then.  Go.

I started down the mountain, flee-like.  I was in some inexplicable hurry, and I wanted to be alone to do this thing.

Down, down, down, I went, not realizing the rips and tears I was inflicting on my legs.  I grew so tired my body shook, even as I forced it to move.  I fell several times.  I was so thirsty I stopped thinking about anything but water.  At one point, I slipped on stones and skidded into a Sequoia tree, my legs buckling.  I knelt into myself and wept.   

Get up. My inner self-scold.   Put.one.foot.in.front.of.the.other.

I got up.  Don’t.look.up.or.ahead.no.matter.what.

I slipped and slid and ran and rattled my way down that mountain, one step at a time.  

Of all the things that are faded from that day, there is one clear and concise moment:  looking at my watch when I finally arrived at my tent.  It was 6:14 p.m.  I’d been hiking sixteen minutes shy of 12 hours.

I fell into my sleeping bag, begging the universe for sleep, but was kept awake by twitching muscles and that thing that happens when we’ve crossed over the wall of exhaustion and are in some whole new universe of fatigue.  Everything was whirly and twirly, but I couldn’t move one single millimeter.  I looked through the top of the tent as a crescent moon moved across the sky.  I heard my travel-mates drinking beer and laughing, late into the night.  When I finally slept, it was fitful and jagged.

I didn't walk right for a month—I looked like a 100-year-old bent-up mass of torn muscles.  

I’ve thought about that hike many times.  My ridiculous arrogance.  My blind assumptions about struggle.  This swiftness with which I was humbled.   My lack of planning.  The moment I realized I had to come back down—that slow, terrible, “Oh, man… you’re in trouble, girl.” 

Knowing there was just one thing I could do about it.  Head down.  One foot, then the other, then the other.

Sometimes we can’t possibly know how hard things will be.  Many of the things I do—principal, mom, writer, person in this complicated world—feel easy on the surface, but occasionally resemble a ginormous mountain:  they are bigger and harder than I'd planned.  

We can’t predict the scars and rips.  But we keep forging on, though, don’t we? 

What is it that makes us go?  Perhaps it’s just faith, or resiliency, or a desire to see a new view.  A new perspective.  Maybe it’s a hidden, unidentified drive to be uncomfortable as a gateway to growth. 

I do know this:  If asked to hike Yosemite again, I’d probably do it.  I’d go slower, certainly, and I would pace myself better.  I'd certainly bring more water, for God's sake, and ration it well.  I’d have to contend with age, now, and a more refined understanding of the elusiveness of common sense.  But I'd still be going in blind.  

It’s all blind, actually.  But we keep doing it. 

We’re rounding the corner into the last couple months of school. We’ve climbed the mountain and it’s time to come back down.  Blind or not, we can do it, because we can do really hard things, and we can come out on the other side—weary, embattled, yes—but also accomplished, triumphant, and infinitely wiser.