Telling Our Own Story

Convocation Message to the Litchfield Staff on Opening Day

August 28, 2015

My theme for the coming year, something you’ll very likely hear me repeat over and over, almost a mantra is:  “This is our year for Telling Our Own Story.”

A Story

And so to begin, I’m going to tell you a story of my own.  This is my granddaughter Ella.  She’s five.   “And a half!” she will tell you. “But, I’m more on the half towards six than five!” she’ll add with an emphatic series of karate chops, as if to cut off the remaining time.  She’s in a bit of hurry to grow up! 

This summer, Ella and I were returning from some errands out past Worchester, Massachusetts.  We got on the Mass Pike, (which is a toll road), at I-495 … and, since I was not driving my own car with my EZ-Pass, I had to stop and pick up a toll-ticket.   Ella asked about it… what it was for and so on… And I told her, looking at her in the rear-view mirror.   

When we got to our exit at Rt. 84, the traffic jam was ridiculous. If you’ve ever been in that area of the Mass Pike on a Sunday evening, when all the summer Cape Cod traffic is headed west, you know that if the exit for Rt. 84 is extremely backed-up, they start waving cars through the toll booths until it clears.  We had that luck.  I had the ticket in my hand, ready to turn it in, when we were waved through.
 
From her car seat in the back, Ella said, “Oh good!  Can I have it?” 

“Sure,” I said and handed the ticket back to her. 

“Thank you, Gramma!” she exclaimed, as if I had given her the deed to the Taj Mahal.  She held onto it, and when we got home, she set-up a pretend game on the kitchen floor, with all of her many horses and one two-foot Tyrannosaurus Rex crossing over the raised wooden threshold between the kitchen and living room.   When each animal crossed over, they had their names spoken aloud, and they got a little circle colored-in on the Mass Pike toll-ticket. 

Why is this story important?  Because this year Ella starts kindergarten.  This year, her family turns her over to the teachers in Southwick, Massachusetts, in a school system that’s not very different from Litchfield’s.  Over the next thirteen years, through their lenses, and of course, through her family’s as well, Ella is about to learn that this toll ticket (with its colorful crayoned dots) has absolutely no real value – and this, a crisp $20 bill, does.  How that ‘introduction to the real world’ and how that ‘education’ take place is of vital importance to all of us. 

It is, of course, important that our students learn math and can wrestle with difficult reading passages.  It’s important that our children learn money and time and the notes on a C-scale.  It’s important that they know what an anecdote is and how to use a microscope.   But, it’s also important that when they see a friend in need, they stop to help.  That even though their T-shirt reads “It’s all about me!” – it really isn’t.  That they learn to understand, and even predict, the impact of their decisions.  It’s important that they sometimes live in their imaginations. 

Teachers do ALL of THAT so very well.  For that reason, it is important we tell our own story.  
Every child, in every one of our classrooms, is an Ella.   A child loved by his or her family and entrusted into the hands of educators who hopefully understand that “in loco parentis,” which in Latin means “in the place of the parents,” in parent-language really means, “Please be kind to my child, kinder than I am when I lose my patience … And, therefore, please, be patient … And, please, please, please be better than I am at translating this crazy world we live in into something meaningful my child can use.”

Fortunately, you’re up to the challenge!  And that too is where “telling our own story” comes in!

We can’t control what happens around us in the educational setting.  We can’t control state mandates for teacher evaluation or for SBAC.  We can’t control ‘opting-out.’  We certainly can’t control what comes into our environment from the outside – our students’ broken home-lives, the prevalence of drugs and alcoholism their culture, or domestic violence. 

That is primarily why my goal for this school year is to improve communications and, through communications, to control our message that we send out into the world!  I want a better and more interactive webpage where it becomes easy to post a picture and a headline… or, a sound bite of kids at work and a sample of their accomplishment.  I want a webpage with a calendar we can trust to be up-to-the minute, menus, and a link to the CIAC, so we can use those kinds of features to draw parents and the community in.  Then, I want rss-feeds and links to Facebook and Pinterest for even more sharing.   I want a place to brag about our teachers and our programs.  I want our positive message, about all the good things we do, to be louder, with a more memorable melody and a stronger cadence, than the voices of the dissidents.

Our communications can be our fight song. 

In Our Classrooms
First and foremost, we can control to a great degree (because it is solely our domain), how we treat each other in our classrooms.   How we treat each other in our classrooms matters.   Sarcasm, (even when gentle), teasing, and insensitivity have a way of chipping away at everyone’s health – ours, the target’s, and the bystanders'.  Kindness and thoughtfulness lift people up!  Incivility holds them down.

Words, when they are not carefully and thoughtfully chosen, make people feel small.  I remember reading a study in Psychology Today which said that emotionally healthy children can receive up to 11 negative messages to every 1 positive.  A negative message could be anything from an emphatic ‘Shhhh!’ to ‘Can you do something with your hair?’ to ‘How many times do I have ask you to take out the garbage?’  ALL messages which adults have long-ago ceased to consider negative.   Imagine, 11:1 -- and that’s the emotionally healthy kids.  The damaged kids received as many as 56:1; and because of their circumstances, many of their negative messages are self-generated: “I’m such a loser!” “Why is everyone prettier than me?” “No one likes me.”

That’s an important set of statistics; but, whenever you genuinely ask a student, ‘How is your mother feeling this week?’ or ‘How many kittens did the cat have?’ or ‘What did you like best about your trip to San Antonio?’ you are showing you care about what's important to them.  When you focus your classrooms on respectful discussions and ask kids to acknowledge another student’s point before they disagree… or, when you consistently reinforce, ‘mean behavior is not tolerated here,’ you are lifting your students 12 feet off the ground!

This year, in addition to talking about math and AP scores and awards, I will try to communicate all of those fabulous activities in your classrooms and our schools which focus on building our students’ respect for others and their own personal dignity. 

In Our Faculty Rooms

No, we can’t control many of the most recent variables of our profession.  But, neither can today’s nurses … or airline attendants … or policemen… and so on.  We are all living in a dramatically changing world.  People in every profession, in every walk-of-life feel the impact of change in their lives.  No one can control the speed of change.

But, we can control how we treat our colleagues in the workplace and how we communicate with each other.  A generalized dissatisfaction with our profession and an insensitivity to the virtues of teaching and teachers chips away at everyone’s well-being.  In the spirit of our colleague-to-colleague communications, reach out to the new teachers we have hired this year.   Share your materials, your ideas, your anecdotes, your legacy, and how our late-openings and snow days work.

Be present, in mind and spirit, when your grade-level teams meet.  Bring your best self to professional development, to SIT Team and PPTs.  Support your principals in faculty meetings.   Advocate for, and be a champion of, teachers and education.  To the degree that you can on any given day, take a deep breath and smile at change because we’ve seen it before and it didn't deterred us then, nor will it now.

In Our Wider Community

I’m asking that you please be thoughtful about how you represent your school and your colleagues outside our doors, as well.   Always remember there is a text … and a subtext.   You might say to a parent, “Wow, we’re having a hard time getting the tech up and running this year,” and what someone in the community eventually passes along to their neighbor is, “That school is a mess and no one knows what they are doing…”  An off-the-cuff remark that “the early release days for PD make the day feel longer, not shorter” later gets translated in the community as, “The teachers hate the PD days, so why do we need them?”  Everyone knows how the negative flows.  Everyone understands the nature of ‘scuttlebutt.’   So, kindly be ambassadors for your schools.  Brag, celebrate, congratulate, and think about the powerful subtexts of those positive messages and stories you can send forth.

Conclusions

Teaching is a challenging job with many unique frustrations, but the rewards of teaching are innumerable.   Remember Ella?  This year someone just like you is going to teach her that while a $20 bill ‘buys her things’ that ‘Mass Pike toll ticket,’ which represents her imagination and story-telling, can take her places too.

That is a powerful… awesome! … responsibility.  And it is ours!  Relish in it!  Celebrate it! 

Do what you can to tell our story!

Connecting Reading to Real Life

Connecting Reading to Real Life

Yesterday, I was taking my 13-year-old grandson to an away soccer game which gave us that momentously valuable opportunity for a car-ride conversation.   Anyone who loves a child knows that sometimes the best conversations can happen in the midst of everyday activities when we are not eye-to-eye.

I wanted to discuss a bullying scene from a movie we had been watching just before we left, and I asked him what he would have done if he had seen the same thing happen at his school.  “Gramma,” he said.  “It’s fake!  It’s only a movie.”  I was struck once again with the difficulty we have as parents and educators helping kids connect to what they read, or in this case, view.  It’s the difference between merely seeing the picture and internalizing what that picture means in terms of being human. 

Readers may already know that helping kids connect the text and their outside experiences is a tough challenge.  But, much more important than mere reading comprehension is the need for a child to connect with what he or she reads or views simply because empathy is a significant life-long success factor.  The best leaders, (as well as spouses, friends, and parents), have the ability to understand the patterns of human behavior and what motivates others.  In addition, people who connect with others and feel empathy are better able to withstand adversity.  Connecting with others provides a feeling of belonging and reduces feelings of loneliness.

Typically, our students connect to the events in a story or a show, and if they have never experienced that particular series of events themselves, they have difficulty imagining themselves in the same situation.  Our job as teachers and parents is to help children move beyond the situation itself and explore the elements of human nature embedded within.   This human connection can come from connecting with pictures in magazines, television, books, and movies.  It involves considering what the people are thinking and feeling, and why.  It involves asking kids important questions about what they read and view.

Try this out with your child.  Use the picture below and ask a few questions such as:   How did the boy get into this jam?  [You don’t want the obvious: ‘He put his head through the chair.’  Rather, and answer such as, 'Maybe someone dared him to do it.' Or, ' Maybe he was showing off for his friends.'] What is the boy thinking?  [He might be embarrassed because everyone knows he did something foolish.  He might be afraid of getting in trouble.  He might be afraid of getting hurt.]  What do think is going through the mind of the lady in the tan jacket?  [She might be afraid … She might be angry …]  How about the man in blue with the saw?

Any example of human experience will do, but if you’re game there is an incredible video on youtube.com at “Sailor Surprises His Son.”  After viewing, ask your child: If the boy is happy, why is he crying?  How does the father feel?  Why do you think the surprise was a good one?

Even our littlest readers and viewers can begin to connect to what they read, hear, and view with practice.  Good connection questions help us draw conclusions about people in general.  They help us understand jealousy, loyalty, shyness, embarrassment, and a whole wealth of feelings humans share in common.  They also enable us to understand reactions which are not common to most people.  Next time you’re reading a story or watching a movie, ask your children to think about whether or not they would like to be friends with a particular character or person.  Ask them what they might have done in that same situation, if they would like to visit that place or to meet that person you read about.  Ask which part of the story or movie they liked best, if one of the characters reminds them of anyone they know... and, of course, always ask why.

Introduction to the Litchfield Community

Introduction to the Litchfield Community

I have had the most memorable introduction to Litchfield in the past two weeks, and I am so grateful to the community for the warmest of welcomes.   On Friday, January 16, the Intermediate School students and I met for a ‘town meeting style’ assembly for which they had prepared a large set of interview questions.  Those questions, some of which I’ll answer below, serve as a perfect means of introducing myself to the Litchfield community. 

To open the meeting, I told the students a little about myself as a child and how lucky I was to have a caring and creative mom.  I shared with them a story my mother used to tell my sister and me about “a little red house with a little brown chimney that had no windows and no doors and a star inside.”  My mother had always made the story seem like going on a magical adventure to find this house, and then she would take a red Macintosh apple out of the icebox (red house, brown chimney, no windows and doors) and cut it crosswise in half.  There was always a star inside.  She told the story to remind us to be interested in the world, not bored… to see things differently and to think about the world creatively, rather than always doing things rotely and routinely. 

As I was sitting at my desk, writing this introduction, I received in my email this picture taken at lunch at the Intermediate School.  It's message mean a great deal to me, and I will always return to it on tough days.

After my story it was time for the kids to raise their hands, come forward to the microphone, give their names, and ask their questions.  I had a great deal of fun and was so proud of their interests.


Robert came forward and asked the first question: Why do we have so many snow days?
While kids like snow days, most adults do not.  Here’s what happens, Robert.  Sometime between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning, I will receive an email from or talk on the phone with Mr. Jack Healy, who is Litchfield’s Director of Public Works.  Road crews are already at work, sanding or plowing, and reporting in to Mr. Healy about the conditions on miles and miles of roads in Litchfield.  At 4:15 a.m., I join a conference call with weatherman Mr. John Bagioni and all of the area Superintendents.  There are at least a dozen of us.  We hear the latest weather forecast, and everyone shares their town’s road reports because teachers will come from many different places to get to work.  We begin to talk our district’s needs, and we listen to what others are thinking.  Then, about 4:45, after everyone weighs in, we end our conference call; and I call Mr. Ed Drapp, who is Regional District 6’s superintendent.  We think about inexperienced drivers at our high schools and your bus drivers both navigating slippery roads and sharing the roads with less careful drivers who may slide into them.  We make the same decision; and in the end, it will always be about student and staff safety.

Sebastian wanted to know: Are you going to make changes to the school or the specials?Today, Sebastian, I met you and many of your teachers for the first or second time.  I have only been in Litchfield for eight days. I want to continue to visit your schools and talk to your principal and teachers … and the staff and students working in the other two schools as well.  I need to listen and find out what’s important to you.  Staying in touch with the schools is how I will focus on what you and your teachers need to be successful every day.  It's not my job to come here and start changing things around to suit myself.  My job is to make sure that all of the people in charge -- from the teachers in your schools to your parents and our community, including, of course, the members of the Board of Education -- always keep their focus on one important question: What's best for kids? 

Maya asked a seriously formal question: How did you get your job? 
With a smile I told Maya it was a long process.  I saw the advertisement for a new superintendent online; and the very first week I saw it, I applied by sending in a very detailed application with my resume, references, and college transcripts.  I made an effort to reflect your community in my application.   At the time, I was the Superintendent in Orange, Connecticut; and while I loved the teachers and students there, I missed working with a high school.  And Litchfield is such a beautiful community with wide open spaces and a terrific school system.  There won’t be as much shopping here; but it is more like the small town where I grew up, so it feels comfortable.  The Board of Education called me for an interview, and I answered tough questions for an hour.  Then they called me again, and I answered even tougher questions for an hour and a half.  Finally, they traveled down to Orange where they met with the people with whom I was working to uncover what those people thought about my commitment to education and my leadership abilities.  In the end, the Board offered me the job as your superintendent… and, I gladly accepted.

Maya’s card also asked: How many family members do you have?
I have a small family, Maya; but we are very close.  I have two children who are grown up. My son is 39 and he works as a digital photographer and graphic artist for a large advertising firm in Greenville, South Carolina.  My daughter is 37 and she stays at home taking care of my youngest grand-daughter who just turned five years old.  She is a curious little girl with an interesting way of looking at everything around her.  She is crazy for horses and dinosaurs.  My son-in-law is in the Air Force.  He repairs jet engines and ‘teaches drill’ to men and women serving in the Reserves.   I also have an 18-year-old grand-daughter, who is a freshman in college and already involved in several civic clubs that do volunteer work and contribute to the community.  She loves school, especially Spanish, social sciences, and government.  She runs 5K races for fun, and enjoys reading, too.  In the middle, I have a 13-year-old grandson with red hair, who loves soccer and plays outdoor or indoor soccer all year long. And, he likes his computer games, too! 

Effie asked: Do you have any pets? Did you have pets as a kid?  I have always had pets.  My father liked English setters and he even raised a litter of puppies.  My two favorite dogs as a kid were Zippy and Bessie, both were black and white setters.  Now, I have one dog, Harley, who is a poodle and cocker spaniel mix, because somehow I became allergic to dogs and he is hypoallergenic.  We also have four dwarf Nigerian goats.

Mikayla asked: What are you looking forward to as superintendent?  Are you excited?
I’m very excited and look forward to coming to work every day.  I love what I do and I love education and making a difference.  The best moments are the times like these when I get to meet with students and teachers and talk about what’s important.  However, there is a lot of email and paperwork, and right now, I’m trying to learn the budget and meet with as many people as I can, so it’s try to try to do everything at once. 

To answer Ashlyn's question, what's my favorite thing about being a superintendent? 
So far, Ashlyn, meeting and working with people -- kids, teachers, volunteers, parents, community members. At the end of the day, I like to feel like I've made a difference.

Emily and Gwen’s questions work well together:  What made you a superintendent and how many years have you been a superintendent?
To do back to my mother’s story, I was always curious and interested in every challenge and adventure.  I always wanted to try the next thing and test myself.  I was a good teacher in Suffield and East Granby, but I wanted to help other teachers and I became a department chair at the high school in Canton, which is very close to you, and I supervised nine teachers.  Then, because of the volunteer committees and projects I was working on, I became interested in curriculum.  I went to school and got my 092 license and became Canton’s first Curriculum Director and Assistant Superintendent.  When I realized I wanted even more challenge and responsibility, I went back to school again and earned my 093 to become a superintendent.  I was the superintendent in Orange for three years before coming to Litchfield.  The main reason I took on all those changes is that I always wanted to try the next step.  

Ava asked: What was your favorite things to teach in English?
I taught high school, so the books I loved may not be familiar to you.  So many books, it’s hard to choose. I taught a lot of different courses in high school.  I loved teaching a very complex books called Behind the Scenes in the Museum.  Another one of my favorites was Ragtime, which is actually written off the beat, just like ragtime music is played.  You know how when you are clapping to music, you usually clap with the beat?  Well, ragtime music is syncopated or off-the beat, as if you were clapping exactly when everyone else wasn’t.  Well, the author wrote the book off-beat.  Just when you think you know what to expect, he does something else.  I loved teaching about Romeo and Juliet, and how the problem was really that the kids could not communicate with their parents and went to their friends instead.  I loved teaching The Bean Trees… so many books, but I’m sorry they aren’t books you know yet.

Jake asked an interesting question: What would your second choice for a job be other than a superintendent? 
I would be a writer.  I try to be a writer even now in my spare time.  I write a lot of short stories; and have written three novels, but none of them is ready to be published.  Someday, I’ll go back and finish what I started, but it takes more time than I have right now.  When I retire, sometime in the future, I’ll finish one or all of the novels and send them out to a publisher to see what happens.

We were out of time, but here are a few of the questions I would have loved to answer:

Deanna wrote: What was your favorite subject in school when you were a kid? I loved everything about school; but I became an English teacher because I loved reading and writing.  I was very good at science, but I didn’t really understand it.

Bella asked: Who inspired you?  My parents did.  My mother graduated first in her high school class, but never went to college because she had been raised to go to work.  Her father worked in a factory and she became a waitress and then a secretary.  One interesting thing about my mother is that she could play the piano extremely well.  She could hear something and play it.  When she was 10 or 11, she traded doing housework for her piano teacher in return for lessons.  My mother also painted clock faces when we were kids.  She was an outstanding artist.  She and my father raised us to go to college.  They also talked about politics and issues at the dinner table and expected us to be thinkers.

Ellen wrote: What were you like in elementary school?  I tried to be very perfect and proper.  If I made a mistake writing, I wouldn’t erase it.  I would start over on another piece of paper.  (We didn’t have computers.)  I always wanted A’s on my report card and was upset if I didn’t get one in a subject.  But, I was also a little clumsy and awkward.  I sometimes did embarrassing things, such as falling off my chair or skinning my knees at recess.  Sometimes I got in trouble for things that I thought were funny, but annoyed the teacher.  One time I took a friend’s hat and hid it in my desk.  The teacher thought I was stealing it and made me stand in the hall facing the wall, which was a common punishment in my school days. 

Daniel wanted to know: Was it always your dream to be a superintendent?  No, I wanted to be an airline stewardess.  I romanticized that they were beautiful, adventurous women who traveled the world.  My father said 'NO.'   I was going to college and that was that.

To summarize a few other immediate concerns:  
No, Tommy, I have no plans to make you wear uniforms.  I went camping when I was a kid, Alex, but never as an adult.   I would love for you to have more technology, Aiden and everyone else who asked the same question; so I’ll work on that issue with the staff and the Board.  
Yes, I do have to work at home, Diana; and no, I have no real trick up my sleeve to being a good superintendent, Erin, other than listening to people and always remembering to do what is best for kids.  Patrick, I have no immediate plans to decrease the amount of homework you get; but it is the kind of issue a district committee can study if enough people are interested.  I do have some favorite memories, Madelyn, like the red house with a star inside; and I write about my memories all the time, so invite me to come to your class and I’ll share another one with you.  


Thank you to the students and staff at Litchfield Intermediate for this opportunity to say hello,