SMS Principal Blog

The truth is that stress doesn't come from your boss, your kids, your spouse, traffic jams, health challenges, or other circumstances. It comes from your thoughts about these circumstances. - Andrew J Bernstein Coming out of a pandemic is providing me with a lot of things to think about. As I wrote about in my previous blog, there is so much reflection and resorting to do in terms of what we choose to take on and how we choose to reframe our lives moving forward based on what we've learned over the last 18 months. The topic I've been rolling over and over in my head this week is the concept of toxic positivity and how we respond to stressful or challenging situations. I started down this road on our SIP day when I popped into the classroom of a teacher who was watching Ron Clark, the keynote speaker for the Paris Virtual Institute.  For those who have not watched Ron Clark speak, he is very positive and energetic, like super positive and energetic. I did not hear much of wh...

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...

  "Normal is nothing more than a cycle on a washing machine." -Whoopi Goldberg For my money, Whoopi Goldberg was at her best in Sister Act , but that's neither here nor there. As we sit here around a year from the first time any of us had any idea what a Covid was or that 19 of them were particularly bad, I think Whoopi's quote is worth contemplating. A week ago, we found out that sports seasons we had all but given up on having are immediately re-instated. Vaccines are rolling out in greater numbers, and we have all had the opportunity to put our name on the list to receive the vaccination we spent much of the last year anticipating as the way out of all this not-normal, but I find myself wondering how much of this not-normal is going to be normal going forward?  Maybe some of this not-normal is actually really good. I've already had teachers tell me they never want to go back to making hundreds or thousands of copies per week. Pushing everything onto the iPads w...

 "Does it bring you joy? If you answer yes, you keep the item. If you hesitate or say no, you donate it or throw it out. It's simple, it's brilliant, and it's something that's completely intuitive." -Marie Kondo I will be the first to admit that I am not a follower of Marie Kondo, and I am guilty of keeping a lot of things simply because I feel compelled to keep them for some sentimental reason over actual necessity. I have boxes and totes of items that I have not used or even looked at in years, yet I will probably never get rid of them. Somehow doing so feels like it is erasing some part of my past or that I would be discarding some relic that my children or grandchildren may cherish in the future as some way of holding on to my memory... or something. Anyway, all of that is to say that I am aware of Marie Kondo's concepts of decluttering and that is what came to my mind as I read  this article .  We are quickly approaching the time of year where I begin...

 "Maybe we should call ourselves the Febreeze Brothers because it's feeling so fresh right now." - Det. Allen Gamble My wife and I really like the movie The Other Guys  starring Mark Walberg and Will Farrell. For those of you who are not familiar, Walberg and Farrell play NYPD police detectives who are very different in their approaches to life and their work. In one scene, the two, having just had their constant arguing blow up in their faces, decide to put their difference aside, wipe the slate clean, and commit to a fresh start.  We are now faced with a similar chance to wipe the slate clean and have a fresh start. We will all get the opportunity to start the semester with all of the experience of the first semester under our belts and what I hope is renewed energy. I know that I began first semester with a lot of doubt and a sense of uncertainty. Grinding it out that way takes a toll on a person, and by the time my doubts were alleviated and that sense of uncertainty ...

"Everything ends; you just have to figure out a way to push to the finish line." -Jesse Itzler Here we are. I am writing this post in an empty building the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Anything could happen in the next 6 days, but right now, we are scheduled to return to school for the final 12 days of the semester. It has been the most difficult semester any of us have ever experienced, but that has been the case for every educator everywhere. In fact, that has been the case for just about everyone in every profession the last few months, so rather than spending time belaboring the point about the stressors we are all facing, I want to spend some time highlighting what I think make us different.  We are 12 days away from completing an entire semester of in-person instruction when most people believed doing this for a week was impossible. We are 12 days away from giving our students something that less than 10% of students in the state of Illinois have been afforded. We are 1...

To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.  -Tony Robins Communication is a tough game. It's tougher during a crisis, and even tougher when trying to communicate with so many different people. Over the last several months, I have tried to communicate with all of you as effectively as I can. I have attempted to be inspirational and supportive as we face these challenges. I'm afraid I have been ineffective in a lot of ways. I assure you this ineffectiveness is not due to a lack of desire to be effective. I am, by nature, a positive person. It isn't to say that I don't have negative thoughts, moments, days, weeks. I do. I simply try to avoid staying in that place for very long. I am also, by nature, a fixer. When I am in a negative place, I attempt to fix it. When those around me are in a negative place, I attempt to fix that too. I suppose th...

 “If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.” – Dean Smith This quote reminds me of something discussed in a book I'm currently reading (via audiobook, so is that really even reading?). They talk about our growing tendency as a society to catastrophize things. The idea being that we interpret everything as a catastrophe, which stymies our ability to adapt to and eventually overcome it. Every bad thing is interpreted as the worst possible thing, and it sends us into a tailspin of depression and anxiety because it conditions us to see the world as far worse than it actually is. It is impossible to go just about anywhere right now without encountering people who are under a tremendous amount of stress, anxiety, and depression. This year is one for the record books in terms of stressors. Between a global pandemic and a contentious Presidential Election, there is a lot of noise that can make even the most stoic individual want to just crawl under...

  I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. -Vincent Van Gogh I feel like we can all kind of relate to Van Gogh on this one. I've gone home exhausted every night this week, as I'm sure all of you have as well. This is incredibly important and incredibly difficult work we do, and when all of the work seems to lead nowhere, it is easy to feel like we are crazy for doing it.  If you are feeling that way on this beautiful Friday afternoon, I want to remind you that you are in fact crazy, but the work isn't leading nowhere; it just seems like it because the work we do is work of the heart and mind. I sometimes envy people who spend their whole day working and are able to visibly see their progress. As frustrating as it is due to my lack of significant skill, that is the thing I do enjoy about home renovations. I will work for hours straight and feel absolutely dead on my feet, but I can see what I did. I will end days here with the same feeli...

  "A good example is far better than a good precept." ~Dwight L Moody We are two weeks into providing face-to-face instruction in the midst of a global pandemic. I have so many thoughts, and I spent the entire weekend trying to figure out what I would write about in my message to you for the next two weeks. Part of me want to just keep writing posts about how impressively you are all navigating this and adapting to a new model for teaching and learning because, frankly, that is the thing that I find myself most in awe of on a daily basis, but I feel like that ends up in all of my Daily Wrap-ups, and I worry that if I say it too much it will become white noise.  Luckily for me, I was invited to join my middle brother's team for a golf outing to support my hometown's Lion Club on Saturday. This was lucky because I wanted to go golfing this weekend anyway, and because it allowed me to spend the afternoon with a fellow Kansas High School alumnus who happens to be in educa...

 I have great belief in the fact that whenever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking. I consider chaos a gift. ~Septima Poinsette Clark As I sit here on Saturday morning, both reflecting on the last several months and looking forward to Monday, I am overcome with a tremendous sense of gratitude toward being right where I am. This time last week, I was full of anxiety about what was to come. Over the last week, the presence of all of you in this building, doing exactly what you do each and every day calmed me tremendously.  In spite of the fact that I am surrounded by an incredible administrative team, walking into this building throughout the summer facing the unknown without my Tribe was a very lonely feeling. In the months we have been apart, the brilliance of what you all can accomplish began to fade in my memory, and while I never truly forgot how great a team of educators we have, it was no longer an ever-present part of my environment.  When you all walked i...

Unity is strength... when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved. -Mattie Stepanek I will have teacher pages pop up on my Facebook feed from time to time. They are always links to articles about topics related to education and being a teacher. Sometimes the articles are really good. Other times, not so much. What I find most interesting, though, are the comments. They almost always reflect the worst possible version of a toxic teacher's lounge. I scroll and scroll trying to find someone saying something positive, but it just isn't there, at least not nearly strong enough or frequently enough to drown out all of the negative, and I can't help but feel sadness for our profession. I wonder what kind of interactions these teachers are having with students and parents when they carry so much animosity about their career.  The most recent article that I came across was from a new principal sharing all of the things she has learned since b...

More often than not, educators find themselves discovering a child's trauma after a discipline referral or academic failure because the process in place is reactive rather than proactive. ~Rhonda Neal Waltman I was overwhelmed by the feedback I received from teachers throughout our district following the presentations by our guest speakers on Friday. So many teachers expressed an interest to hear more, learn more. I was asked if they could come back for a full day. I was asked if we could start doing book studies. I was asked what we are going to do next. It was awesome to see so many educators get so fired up about a topic, especially because a portion of the message challenges how we currently do some things, which normally isn't so easily embraced. I think it speaks to the universality of what we have all been seeing. We may not have had the language to describe it, but we could feel that something wasn't working and that there was some understanding beyond our re...

Research indicates that employees have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company.  -Zig Ziglar It is interesting how sometimes certain themes or ideas will dominate our lives for days or weeks. Sometimes I wonder if I'm unwittingly part of the cast of some television drama and these themes are just the writer's way of organizing things into episodes. Then I realize The Truman Show  is fiction, and the reality is that all of these themes are constantly present, it is only my awareness of them that ebbs and flows.  Right now, recognition is a theme that is on my mind. We found out last week that the Sullivan Chamber and Economic Development is recognizing Sullivan Schools as their Business of the Year at their annual luncheon later this month. As a leader within this organization, I am incredibly honored that we will be receiving this award. For me, it is a sign that our effo...

“When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable — if there are no consequences — that poor performance becomes the new standard. Therefore, leaders must enforce standards.”  – Jocko Willink I love to read. More specifically, I love to binge read. I'm generally not content or even remotely interested in picking up a book and reading a few pages or reading for a few minutes. If I cannot read for at least half an our, uninterrupted, I don't want to read at all. What I really like to do is read for several hours at a time, consuming an entire book in one sitting whenever possible. However, my life doesn't always allow this, so I decided to try something new over break. I downloaded my first audiobook. I figure that I spend a lot of time driving to ballgames and soon show choir competitions. Once I am there, I generally have a fair amount of time to sit and wait for the game to star...