True Champions

What a week. We had the State of the Union on Tuesday evening followed by the State of the State on Wednesday. I won’t give you my official reaction to what I heard and later read because this would become a novel. The bottom line is that politics and money are unfortunately the two biggest factors in decision making when it comes to public education by people that have little to no experience in education. The next few months the debate will rage on about how to ‘fix’ public education. It will be important for everyone in education and everyone else who are defenders of our children to stand up, speak up and let their voices be heard for what should be decisions making based on what is right for our children, not to please corporate interests or get re-elected. Those of us in the trenches working with students and their families each day will keep our focus on doing our jobs as effectively as possible as we always have. 

 

Sometimes the one thing that gets lost in debates about education is the one thing that is most important: making connections with kids. The following is something I shared with our staff in our weekly newsletter a few weeks ago. My discontent with our political leaders has me re-energized and focused more than ever on what matters most. 

“They don’t care what you know until they
know that you care.” 

“No significant learning can come without a significant relationship” 

We started our school year as a faculty watching a TEDTalk from Rita Pierson, ‘Every Kid Needs A Champion’. (http://www.ted.com/talks/rita_pierson_every_kid_needs_a_champion) If you have never seen it you need to. It is a ‘must-watch’. We spend a considerable amount of time focused on our building culture.  We have had on-going conversations about the importance of making connections with students and letting them know that we care about them as people. It is so important that we keep that in the forefront of our minds all of the time regardless of the situation. Middle school students are a unique breed. At no time during a human’s life, other than infancy, do we develop more physically, psychologically, socially, and cognitively, than during the age of ten to fourteen. Throw a whole bunch of them together in one building and you have a truly energetic, enthusiastic, fun and sometimes unbelievable setting. For educators and parents, these middle school kids can drive us crazy, make us upset, annoy us, and disappoint us. But in the next moment they can inspire us, motivate us, energize us and leave us in complete awe. In some of those situations it can be difficult to not hammer someone or jump all over them for their behavior. But even in those situations where our patience is truly tested, our kids (students) need our empathy and patience! 

For some of our students school is their safe place and the only meaningful connections that they have is with many of us. As adults we cannot forget how powerful our actions and words are. As with our own children, we can and will be disappointed with their behavior or decision making from time to time, but the most important part of our jobs as educators and parents is the guiding, shaping, reinforcing, modeling, teaching and supporting that we do all the time to help foster growth in our kids (students) to become good, caring people. They need that even more when they screw up! When they need a kick in the rear we should give it to them, but we should do so in a manner that leaves no doubt with them that we care about them. We don’t yell. We don’t scream. We don’t humiliate. We don’t single out. We may not even like them at the moment – but they should never know it. We have high expectations, we hold them accountable and we tell them that we care about them. A culture of caring will produce incredible results and we can help shape behavior, hold them accountable and let them know that we care all at the same time – they are not mutually exclusive. Once they know we care, anything is possible. 

 

"We can do this. We're educators. We're born to make a difference."  – Rita Pierson 

This is what we value as educators and we work to continually improve and make connections with our students. It isn’t always easy, but it is worth it. I wish those decision makers in Washington and Albany could step up and be True Champions for our students like the thousands of people across the country and state who are proud to call themselves educators.

Continued Success,

Steve Dunham

sdunham@westgenesee.org

@Sdunhamwgms