 What is your transformation? The summer of change. That’s what this has been for me. In May, I started out with my regular mammogram check-up and here I sit bandaged all over my torso (five months later), having completed my last surgery(every finger is crossed, all the dogs are looking heaven ward, etc.) Not that we are expecting everything to be perfectly complete, now, but just for today, just for the moment, peace and serenity are holding me together. Without the constant prayers and funny stories and well wishes, life would Iikely be a bit more despondent. But too many people have the ability to write or say to me, “This is the bump in the road and will get much lighter as time goes.” I admit that a few months ago, I told Dave I felt like a cyborg. Let me be clear---I don’t exactly know all the inner workings of a cyborg, but what I felt was the combination of something natural and unnatural. Pieces and parts of the “real” me coupled with pieces and parts that are from a foreign me. Last night, Kelly ( my dearest friend from college and maid-of-honor in our wedding) had just finished making us this amazing meal for dinner and we were all cleaning up. I look over at the table and there was a cute gift bag on it. As soon as I saw James Avery on it, I knew I had died and gone to heaven. The piece is a butterfly with a cross as its midsection and it is called “Renewal of Life”. What it said was: “A butterfly highlighted by a cross at its core evokes the spirit and wonder of nature’s boundless miracles in this one-of-a-kind charm”. It went on to talk about the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly and all I could think was how much I am transforming day after day, getting stronger so I can go back to flitting around as a only a butterfly does---happy and content. I pray a prayer before I begin each training---something about “may my words transform the tired hearts” (especially those who are tired from hearing professional development sessions that are focused on sitting and getting). Remarkably, too many of our curriculum development opportunities are still done TO teachers and not designed to be engaged WITH them. We have a long way to go to get to the correct point but our cocoons are ready and our wings are prepping as we speak to take us to new and remarkable places as we fully evolve. Read? Hold on for the ride!! Let’s keep remembering how to reclaim the joy in everything we do, even in transformation!! Happy Communicating! Shelly
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 Dave, or as I commonly refer to him, my hero and soulmate, read an article to me in a recent magazine about advice for women going through breast cancer. The timing was so appropriate, as I go in to the hospital in three days for the last (I pray) surgery of reconstruction. We have been living the “breast cancer life” since my diagnosis in early May (just after my mammogram, which I will again remind everyone that the squishing is worth saving your life). The advice was something like this, with a bit of my own suggestions built in:
I was boarding a flight a little while ago, called Dave at work, and told him I was absolutely so grateful for all he has done, is doing, and will do for me. I pray for him a bunch, as it is true what people say about the spouse likely having just as tough a time, if not a tougher time, as the patient. We’re living proof---I was dopey and sick after the last surgery, but at least I didn’t get thrown up on. J As I travel up to one of my favorite training spots in the country to work with some of my favorite educators ever, tomorrow, I began to see the analogies the above advice has to teaching. Trust me, I am not making light of breast cancer. As a survivor, I take it enormously seriously. I also take educating our students pretty darn seriously and hope you can stick with my analogy. I love analogies. They’re like a bridge to understanding something better by comparing it to something else. (See how much I love analogies?) Here is my revised version of the above list for beginning teachers, seasoned teachers, educational leaders, or anyone thinking of going into the education field. 1. Don’t negotiate with the must-dos. In other words, keep your eye on the prize. What is that prize to you? I hope and pray it has something to do with being the best educator you can be. I can’t get enough of Robin Williams in “Dead Poets’ Society” when he talks seriously to his students about finding their verse. He is initially speaking to them of poetry, but what a life lesson for us all. At the end of your educational career, or at the end of your life, WHAT WILL BE YOUR VERSE? Watch the clip---it’s worth the minute and a half it will take you. 2. Lean on your partner for support. I remember when I was single and starting out teaching, my dear, sweet mother would sit on the bed with me at night, helping me cut out laminating, sort books, count out cards for an activity I would do the next day. Now, Dave is the one who hears my frustrations when I want to do better and to be better. He also hears me say, after a day of training, “It was the best day ever!!” to which he frequently replies, “They can’t all be the best day ever.” But if we are both being honest, I said that a good bit the first few years I was a principal. Yes, budget woes and mandates can get us down, but leaning on the best soulmate you have can cure what ails you! 3. Count on your teammates for support----I cannot stress this enough in teaching. We need to be completely finished with empty hallways with closed doors where no one collaborates and shares good ideas. Telling funny stories together as a faculty, sharing a good professional book in a book study together, and simply visiting each other’s rooms can make the difference between feeling isolated and feeling validated. 4. Acknowledge it’s hard but try to focus on the positive as much as possible. I used to talk with teachers, (and now do the same with teachers, principals, and superintendents) about the futility in complaining. Sticking with the winners is good advice in every aspect of your life, but hanging out with people who constantly complain is like drinking poison. It will only make you sick and it won’t solve any of your problems that collaboration and being there for one another can! 5. Pray, if you pray. Meditate if you meditate. Put good stuff in and you will likely get good stuff coming out. In educator terms, we like to say teachers need to feed their souls. What does that mean? Listen to uplifting music, hang out with people who uplift you, put verses or sayings in each other’s mailboxes. I got a chance to teach in a Christian school a couple of weeks ago. The principal had us all say a prayer before I began teaching (and I need all I can get), saying things like, “We pray to hear the ideas that will help us become better at educating the students in whom God has entrusted us.” YES!!! I covet your prayers for my upcoming surgery and promise my own for the incredibly complex and challenging work you do every day in schools across the country and beyond. Happy Communicating!! Shelly Running from one airline gate to another with five minutes until the next flight is going to board.
Getting stuck in traffic while on the way to work, especially when that work is in a place with which I have little familiarity. Rushing to make a doctor's appointment when flooding has caused detours. Running from one airline gate to another with five minutes until the next flight is going to board. Getting stuck in traffic while on the way to work, especially when that work is in a place with which I have little familiarity. Rushing to make a doctor's appointment when flooding has caused detours. What do all these situations have in common? They cause blood pressure to rise and anxiety to creep (or maybe a stronger word is necessary) into our very being. Running late or rushing from place to place has the potential to make anyone crazy. So, what do you do to keep sane? Some people say there is no "cure". Just suck it up, Buttercup, and do what you have to do. And yet, heart issues prevail in our society so often for so many people. It is hard to believe that all this rushing around wouldn't have an impact on our physical beings. As teachers, many of us have experienced more days than not the phenomenon of realizing at the end of the day that we haven't even taken the time to go to the bathroom. No small wonder educators have such a high rate of bladder issues. For those of us in the education world, how many times have we rushed past each other in the hallway without even saying "Good morning"? After a week of working quickly and furiously on both ends of the U.S., I came home to Tucson late Friday night and Dave and I rushed to the airport at 3:30 the next morning to catch a flight to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico (I like to call it my happy place). You know the drill (hopefully your drill doesn't occur at 3:30 in the morning very often)----put luggage in the car, do a passport check, drive to the airport, check luggage, go through security, board the aircraft, then.... In our case, we both fell fast asleep on that first flight. When we landed in Cabo, it was overcast (a rarity, really) and there was a bit of construction on our way to our resort. We finally got to the resort (we've stayed in Cabo several times but this is our first time in our "new" resort), walked in the suite and sighed. Heaven! In this wing that overlooks the lagoon and golf course, we are the first ones to stay here as it is newly built. Everything is new and everything is gorgeous, including the view from....well, everywhere in the suite. All is great. Until about an hour later, when the rains begin and they literally didn't stop for about 36 hours. For the last day and a half, Dave and I left our suite in the pouring rain for two meals up at the restaurant (via golf cart and with lots of umbrellas). What have we done in the meantime? RELAXED. Finally. I admit I missed a few hours yesterday as I slept the afternoon away on a comfy couch while Dave caught up on golf. After going, going, going for a few weeks in a row, rest and relaxation were most appreciated. Instead of looking outside and whining about the rain on our vacation (which I think Shelly in a former life would have done ad nauseam), we took advantage of the time to simply "chill". As educators, we don't often have the time to "chill", but I strongly suggest a few things that will help take the anxiety and edge off of rushing around like crazy people (all of these I have witnessed in beautiful places across the country, especially in Niceville, FL): 1. Stick your head in someone's room each morning just to say "Hello" and to check out a new idea you could steal for your own class. 2. Bring your grade level mates coffee one morning (I saw this a BUNCH at the school where I was principal for seven years). 3. Stick a note or card in someone's mailbox wishing them a happy day or praying for them (it will make your day, too) 4. Even when you think a professional development opportunity is not necessarily an "opportunity", find one or two good ideas you can use in your own class instead of saying "This would never work for me". It will make the day go by faster, guaranteed. 5. Hug one of your secretaries, your principal, the custodian, or a team mate---not just because you think they need the hug but because you need it, too! 6. Finally, take a moment out of each day (maybe two or three) to thank God (or with whomever/whatever you have a spiritual connection) for all the blessings of your life. Breathe in, breathe out and be thankful for just that. And last but not least, remember Helen Keller, who said, "So much has been given to me, I have no time to ponder over that which has been denied." Happy Communicating! Shelly If you have any familiarity with 12-step programs, they talk a good bit about “willingness”. In other words, we don’t have to do everything perfectly, but we do need to be willing to take some steps forward. I have been thinking a good bit about this concept in terms of educational change.
As a professor/mentor for several doctoral students at Walden University, I talk to my students about being willing to accept feedback. Some do it more “willingly” than others, and I get that. Some things are just hard to change. One thing is for certain, though. If you are in a doctoral program and you are writing sentences like “The teachers is going to fill out a survey”, then Houston, we have a problem. But other examples are less cut and dried. For example, are you willing to look at alternate points of view? Nichole Nordeman sings a song called "Brave" that I love that talks about being willing to let go of the status quo. It's one of my favorites for so many reasons!! When I do trainings for teachers and administrators, we always, always, always try to move people around at least a couple of times during the day. I realized a couple of years ago that people were only resistant to moving if they didn’t understand the purpose for it. Moving participants around to work with different people is not a “cute” activity we do to simply get up and move around or do “ice-breakers”. Moving to talk with different people gives us the chance to hear different perspectives from different people (maybe even people of different teaching levels). Hear the theme of “different”? I don’t know who said it first but I say it all the time, now: If we always do what we always did, then we’ll always get what we always got. It just so happens that most people, when I explain the purpose in talking with other people than your own clique or school group, they express gratitude for that at the end of the day. I hear things like “Hearing from colleagues with whom I seldom work gave me a chance to understand the material in a different way”. What a concept!! Is it painful to move? Maybe a bit disconcerting to move outside your comfort zone. I remember feeling the same way when I was a principal. At principals’ meetings, I wanted to sit by the people I knew well so we could exchange quick comments between ourselves about how something would impact us. I once heard Todd Whitaker (one of my favorite school leadership experts) say something like, “If you principals are not willing to get up and move around to talk to other people, I don’t want you in my district. If we expect teachers to help students work with everyone in the class and we expect teachers to work with everyone on the faculty, then I expect my principals to work with everyone, as well.” I shouldn’t put that in quotes, as I know I am not quoting him exactly but it was pretty close to that. In other words, be willing to do something different to expect some different and maybe better results. When I was teaching a few days ago, several participants remarked how they had been changed by the content we had learned that day. We used the work of Laura Lipton and Bruce Wellman to talk about Learning Focused Conversations (2013) and we learned new ways of talking with teachers so that pre- and post-observation conferences could impact teacher practice (and administrator practice, as well, by the way) at a higher level. The willingness of the participants to try out new ways of speaking and new behaviors makes or breaks a training such as this. The participants said things like, “My conversations with teachers will be transformed completely after today” and “I want to make sure I talk less and let the teacher talk more” and “I have so many new strategies to put in my principal tool kit”. One participant, however, shared the way of thinking that haunts many of us if we aren’t careful. He said, “I didn’t learn anything because the way I work with people is perfectly fine and I don’t need to change a thing.” I get a visual image of a mind (and heart, perhaps, as well) that is closed up so tightly, no light is able to get in. No new idea can reach the inside, no matter how loudly the idea knocks at the door. I used to get mad if I heard even one teacher or administrator respond in such a way after I taught my rear end off all day. Now, I will be honest. I get sad for a few minutes then move along. My sadness is for the reluctant learner---the one who is unwilling to change and grow---the one who is unwilling to let the light shine in. I’m not sad for me, anymore. I will continue to find passion in every day, every hour, every minute I teach because I am truly blessed to be able to share my passion with others who share a similar passion. The people who are willing to add even one thing new to their repertoire will be the winners, as they will reap the fruits of their “change” labor. Just for today, perhaps we can think about the way change has enhanced our lives after we have given it a chance to settle in. I would love to hear your comments on your willingness to grow and how it helps you!! Happy Communicating!!! Shelly |
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