Principal's Message - February Edition 2009-2010

WEARING TWO HATS

In just a little over two weeks of sharing time. My son has taught me so much about life. He has helped me address habits, look at what I am doing with work, and open my eyes to a world I knew little about but thought I had a plethora of knowledge. Watching Max come to this world, I have found a new appreciation for life. The idea of a life being formed from my wife and I has diminished any doubts of a higher being. Without getting religious in this message, I had very little skepticism before he was born but I did have questions. Just looking at him and the whole process, I have forgotten what those questions were and, to be honest, I don't really care to remember. I know a life can be created and that love is essential in guiding that life.

So how do I sustain my involvement with the school and what we built while still being there for my son? The debate of “personal life vs. work” is at the heart of my struggle and I have to determine how much I devote to each. Most people can say, "It’s just a job." I don't believe that is necessarily the case when you are a doctor or in education. Human life relies on the productivity of our hands. The pay scale for doctors reflects their importance but not for educators. We are in a world that tries to do so much with so little money. Political tangent... Regardless, I cannot ask myself to determine which one is more important to me, job or child, because I don't think I should have to. My child has become my world. I can't put my wife aside or all the hard work these last five years has accomplished.

So the first thing I look at are my habits. I'm addicted to procrastination especially in the winter when I feel trapped indoors, my eating varies between healthy and heart-stopping meals, and I tend to get sick several times during the winter. With my duties expanding at home, procrastination cannot be as powerful as it usually is during the month. To compensate for this, I am going to have to make sure my work is complete before I walk in the door in the evening. I do not want to fill the few hours I have with my son with anxiety of uncompleted work or guilt of lingering issues that need to be addressed. Time needs to be set aside to take care of these things. For a teacher, this is taking advantage of your non-teaching periods even on those difficult days when a lesson goes down in flames. This way, when I get home, I do not have to sacrifice time for work. I understand difficult times will be faced and time from each area will have to be borrowed. As long as I return to my carved out balanced schedule, then I am not forcing a decision to choose between personal and work.

Another way, to maintain my balance is to take care of my body. Difficult times for me warrant a nice piece of cake or an extra glass at night, or even an extended bed time to help me feel that I control my life. One of the first to go on a bad day is my visit to the gym. These moments weaken positive patterns and disrupt the good habits I have established. For me, they also build up guilt that I fell off what I believe to be the ideal set up. For instance, “Why did I eat both pieces of cake at the birthday celebration?” fills my head after I convinced myself how it would only be one piece of cake. Things I will have to bring back in my life is the use of daily vitamins, watching what I eat especially when I do not get as much time to work out, washing my hands after interacting with students or being in the school building, bundling up when I go outside, staying far away from people who may be sick, and taking advantage of any windows to go to the gym and sustain my strength. I need to preserve my health. A sick day may allow me to stay home but it makes my positive habits and patterns weak. I need those to balance my personal and work portions of my day.

Finally, the key word is “efficiency.” I need to be efficient with my time at school and surround myself with efficient people. In order to maintain my schedule, I need to stick with my plan. When I am surrounded by people who have a hard time maintaining their personal plans, it helps me make excuses to fall off mine. These are the people who convince you to stay out for another drink when they are not taking into consideration that you have to wake up an hour. These are the people who tell me that I talk about work too much without understanding that I actually enjoy doing it. Not only that, by the time I finish, I may have a new idea or maybe even eliminated a bad one.

Parenthood is truly changing me but I believe for the better. It has opened my eyes to how incredibly difficult it is to be a parent. When most of our parents walk in our building, we forget that they are coming from a job when they speak to us. We want to address the issues that we face with their child but we forget that they may have struggled through a day of work or are on their way to begin their hours. It is important for us to take that into consideration when we speak to them. I know we can imagine having a challenging day at our school. Now imagine going to parent-teacher conferences right after. The words you use to address your concerns are vital in the process of building a partnership with parents. Remember to begin with the positive, search for it because there is always something, and then move into the issues. Work together with the parent to turn the child around. Parents need our support. We have to do what is within our capability to provide the best education we can for our students. Parent support is essential to the process. Every parent has a story, another life outside of the building, let’s make sure we are doing what we can to make them feel welcomed and that we have the best interest of their child at heart. It makes it easier to pick up the phone or visit the building, which is what we need them to do.

STAFF BIRTHDAYS

Theresa Stephens March 6th
Paul Mezan March 11th
C.E. Emma-Iwuoha March 14th
Daniel Foley March 17th
Cheryl White-Grier March 17th

Quote of the Month

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” --Barack Obama