The Most Powerful Rooms in Any Community

Young students in our schools are studying communities and how neighborhoods, home, and cities are alike and different.  On my morning run through my little city of Grand Rapids today, I thought about how  our Godfrey-Lee district is experiencing much of the same success that our West Michigan region is. 

The similarities?  I think it comes down to a clear vision, a willingness to take risks, and a commitment to support each other through the inevitable challenges.  Teachers in my buildings are doing just that: aligning their work with a 21st-century vision, opening pathways for students to take the lead, and helping each other learn from results. 

Just as Grand Rapids has transformed itself through vision, new ideas, and grass-roots leadership, so too have classrooms in my school community.  Teachers are partnering with each other and with students to become culture-creators, and our classrooms--the most powerful rooms in any community--are transforming what it means to teach and learn.

Hope-fully

I began 2011-12 with a charge to my staff: Find joy in your work this year.  It seemed like the appropriate focus for a year that promised many challenges--and the staff came through with regular expressions of gratitude to each other for the many ways that each brought joy to our school community.  At our final PLT, a teacher presented each of us with a small bag of remembrances to help us keep the joyful spirit alive.  

This year, I plan to start the year helping my team remember joy and look forward to hope. Hope is misunderstood I think, largely because Americans have taken the word "hopefully" and turned it into an expression that is tentative and unsure:  "Will you learn to play the guitar this year?"  "Hopefully"--as in "I haven't really looked into it, don't really want to practice, and doubt that I'd like it that much anyway." 

Hope is different than expectation. My dog regularly displays expectation: when the treat drawer is opened or the leash gets attached to her collar she perks up and pays attention.  But she can't "hope." Hope is the ability to envision a "different" than what currently is and to have the capacity, commitment, and drive to do what it takes to accomplish that "different."  Like Pavlov's, my dog can only anticipate what is known. 

Some of us are better at hope than others.  I had a friend who was very content with life, so content, in fact, that I asked him once if he ever hoped for anything.  He said he had, but he didn't really expect much.  I told him that a perfect epitaph for him would be "He was a content man, for he lived with hope but without expectation"--a recipe for contentment, perhaps, but an oxymoron when it comes to accomplishing things that have yet to be revealed. 

So this is a year of hope, of taking what we know, what we do, and what we will learn about students and learning, and transform our schools to meet all needs and help all students find success.  Do we expect this will happen?  Yes.  Hope-fully.

Figure 8’s and the Future: What do they have to do with each other? Remarks from this principal to her 2011-12 fifth graders

"Welcome! I am happy to have a few minutes to talk with the whole class, their teachers, and their parents about important things, at this last all-fifth-grade event of the year.

I’d like you to think about a figure 8.  Picture one in your mind.  Where does it start?  Does it have an end point?  Today, I’d like to show you how a figure 8 is like the journey that you are on, and we’ll leave today with a visual reminder of future journeys you will take throughout life.

So, a figure 8 really doesn’t have a start or finish.  It is just two loops that travel around and around.  If you think of a figure 8 as your life, then this Wednesday really isn’t an end, and next September in 6th grade really isn’t a beginning.  Instead, all of life’s big events are part of one journey, one that depends every day on the choices that we make. 

In a few minutes, we are each going to draw a figure 8 to remind us that life is a continual cycle of making choices.  Then, we’ll each turn our figure 8s into a boat, to remind us that we are on a journey.  Each person here will write his or her name on the boat as well as a few words that capture a choice that you made this year that made the journey a positive one--for you or for someone else.

Before I show you how to do that, I want to remind you of some choices you have and can make, as you move through your next steps in your own figure 8 of life.  In the paraphrased words of someone I respect very much:

Go into new adventures without worry and with courage.
Hold on to everything that is good.
Don’t hurt others even though others may hurt you.
Strengthen those who aren’t as strong as you.
Help those who are sad.
And most of all... Honor and respect everyone because their journey is important too.

So, let’s get going on the drawing.  I’ll show you what we are going to do first, and then I’ll walk you through each step and you can draw along with me.  When your boat is done, please write your name on the boat itself, and write a few words on the background of the card about a positive contribution you have made this year.  As you finish, head out of the gym by either door, and we will staple all the boats to our bulletin boards.  After our whole school has a chance to see them, students may take them off the board on Wednesday to keep as a reminder of his or her journey here.

Thank you again, teachers and staff, for providing so many things that have made our journey together a safe, happy, productive one. Thank you, parents for coming and for working alongside us. Thank you, students, for sharing your lives with us, some for three full years.  We wish you the very best as you continue on your life’s journey."