SMS Principal Blog

Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others. -Brene Brown First of all, my wife is going to be thrilled that I'm using a Brene Brown quote to frame this post. I've never read or watched any of her work, but I'm familiar with her overall philosophy and message based on my wife's fandom. She recommends I read some of her stuff or listen to her podcast or something, but I don't ever find the time to get around to it because I struggle with setting boundaries. I spend a very small portion of my time doing things that I want to do. Most of my time is dedicated to doing what other people want or need me to do. I'm guessing most of you are the same way. We are spouses, educators, parents, coaches, friends, children to aging parents... The list of roles we play is endless, and sometimes by the time we put in all of the work we feel we need to do to fill those roles, there just isn't really much left

  "It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen" -John Wooden There is no doubt about it: I'm a big picture guy. I love talking about big ideas and dreaming about what the future could look like. It fires me up. Where I struggle is in the minutia of getting there. I am not, by nature, a super detail-oriented person in most situations. When I am in a situation that requires a hyper-focus on details, it is something that I have to really focus on doing because it does not come naturally to me. I wish this were not the case because I whole-heartedly believe in what John Wooden is saying in the quote above. I truly believe that the only way to accomplish the big picture stuff is to get the details right. I have a big picture idea of the kind of culture I would like to see take hold here at Sullivan Middle School. I want a school where teachers and students enjoy working together, where respect is the norm, and everyone truly loves walking t

  "I decided to fly through the air and live in the sunlight and enjoy life as much as I could." -Evel Knievel I'm not sure if I should be extremely embarrassed or extraordinarily proud that I am using a quote from Evel Kneivel to introduce my message this week. I'm going to go with proud and see how it turns out. The esteemed Mr. Kneivel certainly seemed to be a living testament to the idea that if you love you do, you'll never work a day in your life. I'm not sure that I completely agree with that sentiment. I believe that no matter how much you love what you do, there are going to be elements of the job that are not enjoyable, and there will be days, months, even years when it certainly feels like work. I can't imagine Evel Knievel never had a day where working out the logistics of some stunt didn't seem a little tedious. It doesn't take long to jump a motorcycle over 25 busses filled with flaming sharks or whatever. The majority of his time was

  "I believe in throwing a lot of positive energy in the universe and hope for the best." -Vaani Kapoor These first two weeks of school have been about the most positive two weeks I can remember in quite some time. No doubt, we have had a few very challenging years in a row, and it can be very difficult to stay positive when it feels like so many things are going poorly, but I am excited about what lies ahead for Sullivan Middle School this year.  Yesterday, I began visiting teachers on their prep period to ask them two simple questions: 1. What is going really well so far this year? 2. What could be going better? While I have only visited around 25% of the faculty so far, the answers I am getting are extremely encouraging. Most end up giving me multiple things that they feel are going really well without much thought. When it comes to things that could be going better, the answers require more thought, and everything so far has been pretty minor. We will keep working on thos

  "Nine tenths of education is encouragement." -Anatole France The word encouragement has been running through my mind a lot the last few days. I've been really wrestling with whether this message is meant as an encouragement to me personally or if it is a message urging me to offer encouragement to others. Either way, I've decided that offering encouragement to others is always a good idea, message or no message. A month ago, I was very encouraged. We were building up to a school year that was going to look like every school year leading up to March 2020. I was excited to have a school year where everyone walked in happy. But alas, that is not where we ended up, and I know that many people are very discouraged, which is the polar opposite of our key word here, so I want to offer some encouragement. At one point last year, I was having a conversation with a teacher in which they were expressing how "over" the masks they were. They were tired of wearing them,

" Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful." ~Margaret J. Wheatley I haven't written a new blog post in quite awhile. I tend to do most of my writing from a place of reflection, often as a way of preparing for the future. Writing about things "in real time" is not something I've ever found to be very helpful, and of all the things the past year has been, it has certainly been "in real time". Instead of writing new material, I found it helpful to look back at some of my old blog posts to see what was on my mind or impacting our building during similar points in the school year before any of us had ever heard of Covid-19, and it was somewhat comforting to see that in many cases, it was the same types of things, just on a different scale and within a different context.  I think that with everything feeling so foreign for so much of the last 14 months, I wanted to be rem