Month: October 2018

Happy Principals Month!

~ Jim Bailey ~ Leave a comment

October is National Principals Month.  I can proudly say that I am a principal and absolutely love my job.   

I love that I get to have breakfast every morning with a couple of students to talk about how their year is going.

I love that I get to work with the most AMAZING teachers in the world.

I love that students leave me their artwork to decorate my office walls.

I love that I can change a teacher’s whole day just by bringing them a cup of Starbucks coffee or a Bayne’s cider donut.

I love that I can sneak into a classroom unnoticed and spend 20 minutes reading silently with a class of 5th graders.

I love that I get to see my kids every single day in school.

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I love that I can justify buying as many books as I want from our local bookstore because I know I am going to give them all away to students that will love them as much as I do.

I love that I have a network of principals that push me to be better each day.

I love that I can spend my lunch throwing 16 touchdown passes in one game of recess football.

I love that I have the power to discontinue Accelerated Reader and instead use the money to support classroom libraries.

I love that I get more compliments when I wear my Elephant and Piggie shirt than a suit and tie.

I love that I get to call my teachers parents and tell them how amazing their son/daughter is at teaching.

I love that I get to push teachers outside their comfort zone by nudging them to present with me at national conferences or write blog posts read by educators all over the world.

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I love that I can turn around a crying student’s day by asking them to help draw a book raffle ticket.

I love that I can call a parent at the end of the day to tell them something amazing their child did at school.  I even love the part when they cry because it’s the first time anyone has ever called home with something positive to say about their child.

I love that students slip me little bucket filler notes in the hallway.

I love that we don’t have staff cliques and everyone connected to the school genuinely cares about each other.

I love that my first principal still comes back to visit and see if he can do anything to help.

I love that I can be sitting at my desk and I can hear my secretary tell a telemarketer, “I am sorry, Mr. Bailey is out of the building right now.”

I love that students come down to my office to read me their stories they write during writer’s workshop.

I love the screams I hear up and down the hallways when the March Book Madness winners are announced each week during the tournament.

I love that I can watch teachers try new things, even if they fail spectacularly.  

I love that students aren’t scared to go to the principal’s office.  Instead they rush in with smiling faces to borrow a book from my principal’s bookshelf.

I love that I get to be an elementary school principal.

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Happy Principals Month to my fellow principals!

 

We Teach The Girls

~ Aliza Werner ~ 8 Comments

We teach the girls.

We teach the girls
with braids in their hair
curls down their backs
and perfect pigtails

Purple hair
shaved skulls
and frizzy ponytails.

We teach the girls who wear
flouncy skirts
glittery tees
and fuzzy big boots

Basketball jerseys
hand-me-down shirts
and baggy blue jeans

We teach the girls who love
double-dutch
dancing
ponies
and princesses

Football
skateboarding
dinosaurs
and superheroes

We teach the girls who color with
pink
purple
and sky blue

Black
orange
and royal blue

We teach the girls who dream to be
ballerinas
actresses
and fashion designers

Firefighters
engineers
and monster truck drivers

We teach the girls who feel
shy
introverted
and unseen

Confident
bold
and strong

We teach the girls with
scrapes on their knees
paper cuts on their fingers
and sore texting thumbs

Wounds on their wrists
bruises on their back
and pain in their bellies

We teach the girls who have been told
what it means to be a girl
as if sugar and spice
and everything nice
could define it

We teach the girls who have been told
they need pink Legos to build castles
they throw like a girl
they must greet relatives with a kiss
that dressed up means wearing a dress
that cute is more important than curious
that sentences should always be qualified with “I’m sorry…”
be nice
be polite
wait your turn
stop being bossy
you’re emotional
you’re sensitive
you’re inferior
you’re less than
you’re not worthy

That people exist only in binary systems
female, male
rich, poor
straight, gay
black, white
missing the millions of shades of gray, and brown, in between

To wear shirts that read
“Allergic to Algebra”
“Future Trophy Wife”
“I’m Too Pretty To Do Homework”
(Can a girl get an empowering message or stegosaurus shirt, please?!)

We teach the girls who have been told
love is conditional
affection is earned
it’s probably their fault
“No” is a fluid term
their body is not their own
not to tell…

We teach the girls. All of the girls.
We have the opportunity to teach the girls to
demand apologies like Serena
reclaim their time like Maxine
speak out like Malala
sit down like Rosa
stand up like Gloria
play like Billie Jean
organize like Fannie Lou
face challenges like Helen
influence like Oprah
write like Maya
speak like Emma
create like Coco
express like Beyonce
lead like Indira
tell their truth like Christine

We teach the girls
and we teach the boys, too

They all need to know that girls are
complex
capable
powerful
and more than worthy

Because someday
soon,
even now,
the girls will teach us.

 

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Creators Create Community

~ mandyrobek ~ 1 Comment

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Last week I had the pleasure to listen to author Cleo Wade speak.  She wrote Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life and is an activist.  This year I’m doing some thinking around creating and was surprised to hear her start talking about creating.  My notes included these thoughts; creating is in our DNA, individuals have the capacity to create, and “creators create community”.  My ears perked up even more because I knew I wanted to find some moments to reflect on community and share in this space.

She gave us a question to ponder, “Where have the ambitions of building community gone?”  She urged us to think about the act of this question a sacred task.  Other notes I jotted included

  • communities give us opportunities to choose to unite
  • communities bonds of spirit
  • communities help us rise above our concerns

My students don’t get to choose to share a classroom with each other.  Their class placements is done for them.  I realized reflecting on the first thought, they do get to choose to unite with each other.   I believe one of our roles as a teacher is to help our students make that choice in hopes of creating a spirit of cohesiveness.  If we have a feeling of cohesiveness perhaps we can rise above our own concerns and make a difference for each other and beyond.

I would respond to Cleo’s question and ask her to look within classrooms for ambitions building communities.  May our work help carry to spaces outside our schools and help people connect in person with others.