A Postcard from the Principal’s Office: #1
If you only knew….
First:
[We are two days removed from yet another mass casualty school shooting in the good ol’ US of A. This post was drafted and in the “to be sent” calendar moments before I heard the news out of Apalachee HS in Georgia. I honor, by using their names, and promising to never forget, the two 14-year-olds, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and educators Richard Aspinwall and Christina Irimie who died simply because they were at school on Wednesday. And I grieve their deaths with their families. I don’t send them my thoughts and prayers—those heartfelt sentiments have been stripped of all meaning by ill-meaning politicians. But still, I grieve—they were my students and teachers too.]
Here is that originally drafted post. As significant as I believe it is, it feels insignificant right now. But, kids are back in school today. And they’ll show up on the next school day too. May each be happy and safe; may each be healthy and strong. And may each be free from suffering—even while they practice their next active shooter drill.
If I were going to write a book, I’d write it about this.
School is back in session.
In June of 2022, I resigned my position as a public school educator (1 year as a substitute teacher, 12 years as a jr. high science and math teacher, 20 years as an elementary school principal) in order to be the 24/7 caregiver for my dad during his dying days. I don’t regret leaving the profession; and I’ll never, ever regret having been a public school educator. It was the privilege of a lifetime to have been able to say I had the opportunity, every day, to be a part of, to influence, and be influenced by, the lives of kids. We, the staffs I worked with, said we did the world’s most important work—and we did. No one can argue that with me, or dare to.
“They” say to write what you know. In a sense, that’s what this newsletter/blog has been about—the Alchemy of a Journey has been a chronicle of the only life I truly know well…mine. It began as a chronicle on my dad (more on this next week), but evolved to be about the things that have captured my attention and imagination since my dad died in March of 2023—those things being the ingredients that make up my life. If I were to write a book, however, one that might have a chance of being interesting or beneficial to anyone else (since my life is only really interesting to me—it’s the only one I’ve got), it would be focused on the thing I knew best, outside of me—school. Counting my life as a student, through elementary school and college, then on to my career, I showed up for the first day of school for 52 consecutive years! I learned a thing or two about school. But I should have written more of it down because, almost on a daily basis, life, in its full, joyful, and sometimes catastrophic glory, showed up every day, at the front doors, through the guise of every single student and staff member that brought their lives into the school house. Though I took few notes of those experiences along the way, each became a part of me as I lived them—so each experience is, in some way, locked within memory—some at the surface of mind, some in the depths of heart, many metabolized into the marrow of my bones as the years and students and experiences blur. But none totally forgotten, just changed as they became a part of who I’ve become.
Schools are sacred places—and they should be considered as such by everyone (not scapegoated, ever, for political gain. SHAME on anyone who does that! And you know who THEY are!). I always felt it the #1 job of every school staff person to make school a sanctuary for all who entered through the doors. Schools are microcosms of the real world—we had our interpersonal dramas (trust me, kindergarteners can rival the Kardashians in drama!), our joys and laughter, our sorrows and grief, our loves and losses, and our teaching and learning.
Schools are sacred places—if your only experience with school was having gone through them as a student, or even if you have since been a parent of a student, you can’t quite fully appreciate what schools are and should be within the confines of a neighborhood or community if you haven’t lived in one as a teacher. It was important to me when I was a principal that my staff knew, no matter their role (eg nurse, admin assistants, secretaries, psychologists, custodians, cooks, etc.), that every adult had the potential to be a teacher—so they were best advised to be the best teacher every single day for our kids. We came to understand that our kids are watching us every moment; so every moment became THE teachable moment in the context of that relational interaction.
Back to the book I’m not writing, on the thing I know best.
I’m an introvert by birth—so why wouldn’t an introvert choose to go into a profession where, every day, he finds himself among hundreds of people, with raw emotions worn on their sleeves, and exposed to all those emotions known to humankind…all before lunchtime? Every day I’d end my day exhausted, mostly due to the emotional impact my days had on my core nervous system—and because of my introverted nature, I could not retell or debrief my experiences with anyone else, not even my wife, because introverts can hardly tolerate the retelling as we have the propensity to relive too many of those emotions all over again. That’s the cost of being an introvert in a very extroverted career. Truth of the matter was: school was always a comfortable place for me. I did well in it, had many distant but not real close friends (aside from a very few girlfriends), enjoyed some success as a football and baseball player, and was never bullied. (Yes, I was VERY fortunate). I liked most of my teachers and I believe most liked me. (You can tell! Students can tell if their teachers love them and if they love teaching!) Maybe I was too risk-averse to try a different career (though I did start undergraduate work as a pre-med student). Ultimately, I evolved to love education because I truly loved what I did, and on whose behalf I did it. Unless you’ve experienced it yourself, you cannot know the true honor and privilege it is to be invited into the lives and families of so many children who call you their teacher or principal. Or in my case, their Mr. L.
Every teacher’s got stories. And the stories we’ve got, not even a Hollywood script-writer could write (well, check that, some come close—see the reference below for a current “nonfictional fictional” accounting!). There have been excellent movies about teaching: Teachers, Dead Poet’s Society, Mr. Holland’s Opus, School of Rock, Freedom Writers, Finding Forrester, Stand and Deliver, Good Will Hunting, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Lean On Me, The Holdovers, One Eight Seven… and many, many more. Each of those an accurate portrayal of school and teachers’ stories—they became popular because we could relate to them. I’m guessing in the pantheon of your own movie viewing over the years, you, too, might just have a favorite movie that centered, in some way, on school.
I’m interested in exploring my memories of school, and the best way I know to do that, to gleam more of the lessons that lay hidden in each memory, I need to write about them. So, monthly, or a couple of times a month, I will be including some of the life lessons and stories I’d accumulated while serving our world through the career of being a teacher. Some of those stories might resonate with others; after all, there aren’t many other things and experiences in life most of us have in common outside of school. I think I’ll call them “Postcards from the Principal’s Office.” They remain under the major heading of “Alchemy of a Journey,” because having been a teacher remains one of the most profound influences upon my life, and is still among the most profound reasons I am who I am today. Only my life as a husband, father, and family member comes before.
Maybe each post will become a chapter in that book I’m not writing. Maybe I still have some teaching in me. Maybe I still have some new students and parents somewhere to influence, and be influenced by. I will be so lucky. As principal, I made a point of sharing the most important learners in a school had to be the adults—the staff members and parents. Every day, our kids teach us exactly who they are and what they need. It was always up to us to learn from them in order to interpret their language and behavior and translate it into the appropriate lessons that needed learning. I want to explore some of those, out loud, this year through this forum. Come along if you like, I won’t take attendance, but you may miss out on important learning if you are absent.
Through the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent school disruption, I learned profound lessons on the role schools play in the lives of families and communities. As the pandemic eased, and more students returned to classrooms, I started to work differently with the parents of our students—because I had learned some stark and oftentimes troubling truths. I hope to tease those out in some future “postcards.”
You’re invited, therefore, into my office—the principal’s office. Know that it was a primary goal of mine that no student, EVER, feared coming into my office. I’ll make it not a scary place for you as well—but trust me, if I have the ability to be real and raw and honest in my story-telling, I promise you, you will learn something new about school. [Maybe even on how we in school had to come to grips with active shooter scenarios—THAT deserves its own chapter in the book I’m not writing.]
And in that telling, if I have any impact at all, I hope it will prompt you, the next time you meet a teacher, to thank them for their service to our children. Now more than ever.
They deserve it. In more ways than you can know, unless you too are a teacher…they deserve it.
School has begun for the 2024-25 school year. Teachers celebrate two “New Years” over the course of a year: the boring one everyone celebrates on Jan. 1; the second more important and profound one that starts the first day of school every late summer/early fall.
There are new stories to be written.
Class has begun, y’all.
Live, Laugh, and Love—with Clear Eyes and Full Hearts,
Always and Ubuntu,
~ kert
And with Ahimsa!
🙏🏼
Postscript:
For what it’s worth, there IS a TV show that actually captures quite well, and accurately, the life of an elementary school through the eyes and hearts of its staff. Abbot Elementary is not so different from every other elementary school in America. What I have found endearing from the episodes I have seen is how heartfelt and true most of the depictions are. And you get an amazing glimpse into the intentions and motivations (and hearts) of those who devote their professional (and oftentimes personal) lives to children. For those outside of the profession, Abbot Elementary is defined as a fictional comedy; for us educators, it’s a documentary.
(Oh, and the part about the stripper—yeah, that… maybe not so much. Or maybe so. You’ll have to click to find out—then ask a teacher.)
I spent ten years in the classroom, mostly as an eighth grade English teacher. Like you, every time I hear of a mass school shooting, I hold my breath. The first thing I think of is the students and the second: the teachers. I have so much more to say on this, but I'd probably end up with a book by the time it's all told!
I have been on childcare leave for four years now, and though I miss the classroom, I don't want to miss this time at home with my two small children. I am enjoying this phase of teaching very much so, and maybe one day, I'll be back. In the meantime, I'm writing more as I've been afforded more time during the weekdays with part-time childcare. I don't know if writing will become my new career, but I'm game for giving it a go. My daughters are a huge motivator in this new journey (as well as the students and staff that I was so honored to work with). ❤️
I hope you find the time to check out my own work over at Human/Mother sometime! Thanks!
A lovely piece, Kert. And a poignant honoring of the victims of yet another horrendous shooting.
Your students were blessed to have you as teacher and principal. I look forward to the addition of your upcoming Postcards. And the book you’re not writing, brilliant.