Excellence

"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word-- excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it."
-Pearl S. Buck

As many of you know, I have been conducting interviews for our open teaching positions over the last few weeks, and it is both a very exciting and very stressful process. On the one hand, it is exciting to think about the fact that I may be meeting a teacher who goes on to spend three decades leaving a lasting legacy on Sullivan Middle School. I mean really, who hasn't looked at some great person with a tremendous career and wondered what it would have been like to meet them at the beginning, before they were a legend? Just me? Ok, but I do it anyway, so there is part of me that really enjoys the interview process because every candidate who walks through the door could be that future SMS teaching legend, and they don't even know it about themselves yet. 

The other side of me finds the process very stressful because I know the hiring decision I make could either increase or decrease the overall effectiveness of our faculty. I could either be adding someone who makes us better or worse as a whole, and I put a tremendous amount of pressure on myself to get the decision right. This really struck me as more than one candidate has given me the opportunity to speak about our existing faculty, and I find that I just can't speak highly enough of our team here at SMS, but the one thing that I do find myself emphasizing to them the most is that we have a group of teachers who truly enjoy coming to work with each other each and every day. I don't know if you are happy at work because you are excellent or excellent because you are happy, but either way, it is an honor to be a part of it, and I sincerely hope that when we look at our new teachers at this time next year, that I have made decisions to add to that excellence because you all deserve that from me.

Free high fives to anyone who comments with their favorite thing about SMS.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm Full of It

Image
"Teaching should be full of ideas instead of stuffed with facts." -Unknown I remember having to memorize all sorts of things in school. At one point, I could recite the first 30-some elements of the periodic table, all of the state capitals, the presidents in order, and the states in alphabetical order. I can still do the state thing, which blows my wife away because they did not sing that particular song at her Catholic elementary school. My kids probably can't do any of those things, but I see them doing things that I couldn't have even begun to attempt at their age. The age of information is transforming our relationship with information, with facts. There was a time when memorizing the periodic table may have been helpful because it saved you the time of pulling out a book to find it. The investment of time to memorize it presented a positive return in the time you would save constantly having to find it. Now that we are all carrying the sum total of the co
Read more

Oxygen Masks

"When you take care of yourself, you're a better person for others. When you feel good about yourself, you treat others better. " -Solange Knowles I was reminded this morning, as I almost slid through a stop sign, that in spite of some mild weather last week, we are likely several weeks away from the end of winter. This realization kind of bummed me out, to be honest. I had already let my mind turn toward thoughts of spring activities and getting back out into the fresh air, but this morning I'm reminded that it is still January. These thoughts let me to other thoughts about how quickly January has gone. Really, as we look ahead to parent teacher conferences and then PARCC followed by Spring Break, this whole semester is likely to fly by, and we will be enjoying those warm spring days before we know it, but his week is all about heart health, and I know winter is a time where it is easy to fall into some bad habits, so much like flight attendents remind us
Read more

#OneTribe

"I realized if you can change a classroom, you can change a community, and if you change enough communities you can change the world." -Erin Gruwell For anyone who attended last night's varsity girls Sectional Championship game, I hope you felt the same sense of pride and community when our (significantly larger) crowd erupted when our girls took the court to begin their warmups and then over and over again throughout the game, especially in that very exciting first half. For about 90 minutes, any differences some individuals in attendance may have with one another, we were united in a common purpose-- to support our Lady Redskins up until the final buzzer sounded, at which point they earned a well deserved standing ovation for giving us all something to get excited about this week. I love moments like that. Championship runs are a prime example of the sense of community that can be built when a group of people all share a common goal or sense of purpose, when
Read more