Susan Fedor/00-01/Diary Entry 7

Entry # 7: My Debts Are Without Number

This week I reflect on my debts to others: leftovers from a long Thanksgiving weekend.

Just before Thanksgiving, I watched a caravan of cars pull away from the curb in front of the school, heavily laden with goods for various charities in the area. Teams as part of a school service initiative had gathered these contributions. Every morning students struggled out of cars in the car pool line pulling out bookbags and band instruments and bags of clothing, canned goods, and other donations.

As I walked around the school, each classroom had a mounting heap of collected items that students were eager to tell me about. When the call came on Wednesday to take the collected goods to the waiting cars, the excitement was palpable in the halls. Children struggled with goods on their backs, bumped through doors, spilled onto sidewalks and laughed with shining eyes in the full knowledge that they were doing good.

This aspect of adolescence is the most inspiring to me: their absolute belief in the ideal. Their inclination toward altruism may lessen in the coming years, but now it is at an awe-inspiring level. They believe in their power to change the world. To see it in their eyes is humbling. What a way to start a vacation with the spirit of love and giving evident all around me! The first debt is to the students who remind me that my reach should always exceed my grasp.

Thankful for a critical friend

Then, this week, I visited a school vying for a coveted award of excellence. My partner on the trip was a principal whose accomplishments I have admired for several years. We exchanged tales of woe and wonder on the trip down. The perspective of a critical friend is invaluable. I related to her the resistance I was experiencing with my faculty about a research project we had designed last summer. Now that the time had come to begin work on it, the pressure of covering textbook material (and the test to come) as opposed to a project that required application of research, writing, and speaking skills seems as though it may sink my hopes for something more meaningful.

The specter of the test diminishes enthusiasm for a new approach to design and delivery of meaningful learning. I asked her opinion and she pointed out that the principal's role is sometimes to listen and heed and other times to put on the blinders and forge ahead. It was just what I needed to hear. This was debt two.

My third debt: An example of leadership

The third debt I racked up this week was that of a school that opened its doors so that others may learn from them. This school, in competition for the award, had made themselves vulnerable to outside evaluation by doing their best to implement exemplary practices. They were proud of their accomplishments, particularly in light of the distance they had come in a relatively short time. They've experienced re-districting and a magnet school drain. They are the keepers of a long-time heritage as the African American high school in a tightly knit community. All this had to be processed as they created a "new" school with deep, older roots.

I never pass through the doors of a school that I do not take away from the experience more than I bring to it. A school visit affirms some of the things that I believe about best practice and causes me to question some of my assumptions. I think involuntarily about my own school and wonder if I am doing the best that I can as its leader.

This school had a strong, distinct personality. It was the same as the strong, distinct personality of its principal. There was compelling evidence that the members of this school community wanted to win this award not so much for themselves but as a tribute to this principal whom they held in the highest esteem (bordering on sanctification).

The parents had tears in their eyes as they gave emotional testimonials as to his care and concern for all children in the school; his accessibility at any hour of the day for any reason; his compassion and his empathy. Now, here is a study in leadership. He, in turn, was a leader worth following who greeted us at the door with an apology that he had to attend to a bus incident where $50 was missing. He reported back in moments that he'd recovered the goods. This bit of beginning-of-the-day business took precedence over our visit, as it should have. My third debt is to the example of dedicated principals working to make their schools better and willing to be personally vulnerable in the process.

Thankful for a staff who will take up the slack

My final debt is to my school and its staff, who are willing to take up the slack in my absence from the building for the next few days. Learning is like breathing for me. The need to know more is a nearly physical need. So, with the National Staff Development Conference nearby in Atlanta this weekend, my bags are packed, my assistant principals apologized to, the faculty given an explanation, and I'm away until next Wednesday.

Three school days without a walkie talkie! Important decisions to make: none. I registered for every session I could identify that linked staff development with student achievement. My hopes are that I return with ideas to keep us above the fray about teaching to the test -- and clearly focused on effective strategies that promote love of learning and generate excitement for new ideas. Well-trained teachers are the absolute linchpin of a successful school. Any other focus is merely tinkering.
These are debts I hope to pay back in some form as I wend my way through my days as a principal. I learn from reading, examples, first-hand experience, the experience of others, but most of all from my own mistakes. I have an abiding appreciation for those who offer their hands to help and have developed a gratitude for those who have come before and now work as contemporaries through the same thorny issues and vexing problems. The debts mount up and I am grateful for every one.