What are you doing on the second day of school? It’s not a question we ask ourselves or get asked often. After 12 years as an educator I would suggest to you that it is the single most important day of the school.
Yes, the first day of school will always get all the buzz. It comes with the cute Facebook or Twitter pictures, the feeling of a new beginning and the spirit of excitement as you set out to accomplish the ambitious goals you set for yourself as an educator. The first day of school is exciting and even sometimes nerve racking if you’re new to the education profession. The good news is, you’re going to do great the first day of school. You’ve got a great plan so take a deep breath and do what you’ve been working toward. The first day will be great. So what’s with day two? Why is it so important? Really, it’s pretty simple. Day two is the day where you get to decide if you’re going to keep those expectations you set up on day one. On day two, your expectations stop being about what you discussed on the first day and start being about what you’re doing. Did you tell kids you have a fun, engaging classroom? Don’t spend day two filling out form after form or listening to a boring lecture. Did you tell kids on day one that once they enter your room it’s time to work, limit their discussions to things related to your subject or something similar? Don’t let them spend the first part of their time in your class talking about the Kyrie-Isaiah trade. Beginning on day two, keeping your year on track becomes far less about what you say and much more on what you allow kids to do, both with classroom management AND with learning activities. Follow through with what you said and what you framed on day one. If you promised engagement, leverage your PLC to help you design engaging, authentic learning experiences. Execute the procedures you set up for your room and practice them with students again on day two if needed. After the kids have gone home on the first day, look at your plan for day two. I know you will be exhausted, ready to go home, but just take a look. Does what you have planned for day two align with what you laid out on day one? Once you’re there, execute. A successful day two will have you on your way to a great year.
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Community engagement is something many schools are looking to improve. As the years go by it seems to get harder to find ways to get the community to come through the doors. The world moves faster than ever before and we face competition not only for resources, but for peoples time. For the last two weeks I've really been thinking a lot about what gets people to commit their time to one thing over another. What I've come up with was pretty simple. It seems as though people invest their time with a few major considerations:
The third point is the one that struck me most in my reflection. I can't even count how many times I've made time where time didn't seem to exist for someone that had gone the extra mile for me. From attending graduations, weddings and kids birthday parties to taking time away to help a friend in need I can't even count how many times the rationale behind dedicating my time toward something was justified by that third reason. With that in mind, I am hoping to get approval to try something new this year. Instead of trying to pull the community into our school, I want to send our school to the community. Every year schools send teachers out for various professional learning events, curriculum writing and many other endeavors in what many of us refer to as "school business" sub situations. This year I am going to ask about whether or not a school can do that for staff who want to participate in volunteering one day at a local community outreach program or business to give back to our community. The rough draft of the idea goes something like this:
My hope is that the impact of how we serve our community leads to more people wanting to plug-in with our school. The idea being to grow a community mindset behind the third rationale I wrote about earlier in this post. I should point out that none of this has been approved. In fact, I haven't even brought it up yet but since I'm blogging about it, I'm accountable to try. There is a chance it may not fly. There's also a chance it revolutionizes the way we view community and grows a deeper sense of purpose among our staff. It's an idea that I don't think I would have been brave enough to approach before starting this blogging journey. I've not always been one to share my ideas so publicly, but after seeing my former principal tweet the picture below today, you never know which of your ideas just might catch on. While sitting at church my pastor said something that I found highly profound. “The teachings of Jesus” he said “are not meant to educate us, they’re meant to transform us.” I think it’s a powerful perspective.. It not only made me think about my personal life but my professional life as well. Are we trying to educate students or giving them opportunities to experience genuine transformation?
In my school district, our vision statement is “All of our students enjoy thriving, productive lives in a future they create.” If we are truly going to achieve that we have to stop trying to educate kids with what we want them to know. While our learning has to be rooted in the prescribed standards it doesn’t have to begin and end there. We have to give students learning experiences that will allow for a genuine transformation and understanding. Relationships are the foundation upon which education is built. I would even dare to say that there may not be a more people oriented business than being an educator. As I returned back to work this week I was reflecting on last year, thinking about those students that I know I really need to build relationships. As I was reflecting I began to think about all the times we talk about building relationships. While it’s great we talk about it so much I feel like we’ve begun to see this as somewhat of a one-way street.
If we focus on relationships as something we build with kids only we will miss the mark. As an educator, some of the greatest moments in my career centered around times where kids invested in me, made me feel safe, made me feel like I was valued. Building relationships is a two way street. If we spend all of our time investing in the kids but we don’t allow them to invest in us our relationships will never fully materialize. Doing this will require us to be vulnerable. We may have to share things or exhibit certain behaviors that we’ve played close to the vest for a long time. It will require us to admit that we don’t have all the answers and that we can learn so much from our students. It means that sometimes we need a little help to make it through the class, lesson day or whatever is in front of us and our students can provide just that. The bottom line is that if we look at relationships as something that educators pour into students we will miss that the reciprocal of this is also necessary. Without the reciprocal, you’ll find yourself stuck in very superficial, if not artificial relationships that will likely end up doing more harm than good. |
AuthorJeff Lahey Archives
January 2020
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