Constantly Examining (Thoughts on School Culture, Part III)

I wrote previously that culture is about knowing who you are and about knowing your people, and about how you can’t know your people unless you know yourself and where you're coming from and your emotions and where your head and heart are at.

The next step, after making sure you have those pieces in place to the best of your ability, is to align your core beliefs with your daily actions so that people who work in the organization understand that this is who we are, and this is just what we do here. Everybody in the establishment needs to understand that that is what the culture is here.

If people can’t align the core values that have been established to their personal and outward daily actions, then they don’t belong here.  It's that simple.

And then again, it's not simple at all, is it.  It's not as simple as saying, "please align with these core values and beliefs."  You've seen it all too often - people sit in a room with the best of intentions, they work together to hammer out what everyone believes will be the mission and vision of the school, and then the year gets going, people get lost in their work behind closed doors, things take place, honest, open discussion doesn't happen as often as it should (always to the detriment of the group... and the students), and all of a sudden it's the end of the year and the organization's Core Beliefs, or those finely tuned Mission and Vision statements, all of which everyone worked so hard on and were so excited about, are a distant memory.

Roland Barth wrote, "Show me a school whose inhabitants constantly examine the school's culture and work to transform it into one hospitable to sustained human learning, and I'll show you students who graduate with both the capacity and the heart for lifelong learning."

The notion presented here by Barth ties in directly with my point - unless a school and its inhabitants are constantly examining shared beliefs, core values, mission statements, big picture visions and the like, the direction of the organization can tend to get lost, the path muddied.  It is worth remembering that if it is worth saying, if it is worth bringing people together and spending any substantial amount of time on a thing, then it is worth repeating.  Multiple times.

This quote by Barth is one I had come across many years ago, probably during that 1st principalship I held at Murphy Elementary School.  Like the discussion I had with the Mayor over lunch before the start of that year, this idea has stuck with me through the years, and done a lot to help in the formulation of my thoughts around schools and teaching and learning and students and communities.  I ended up staying at that elementary school for 8 years before receiving the internal call to move on.  During those years, the idea from Barth that one needed to constantly examine the school's culture stuck in my head like no other idea ever has.

For 8 years, we examined the school culture.
For 8 years, we talked about and discussed school culture.
What it looked like in everyday action,
What it sounded like in classrooms and in hallways, in the cafeteria and on the playground,
What it felt like to outsiders who came into our building, and
What it meant if something wasn't working how we wanted it to work.

These were not easy conversations, some of these.  We didn't like to admit when we had it wrong.  We didn't like how it felt to discuss with people when they weren't living up to the expectations that we had so painstakingly and lovingly announced publicly.  We didn't like the feeling of starting over constantly.  What we discovered throughout this process, however, was that we weren't wasting our time having fruitless conversations around test scores and academic initiatives.  Were these important?  Of course they were.  We knew that, and they were in place.  They had a purpose.  They are part of life in the schoolhouse.  But they were taking care of themselves.

Because we engrossed ourselves in conversations around Culture and how to constantly "Do Culture" better, everything else took care of itself.  After 8 years, we were the only elementary building in the district to be meeting and exceeding in all areas of AYP (remember this??).  And the only thing we changed was the Culture of the building.  It was the only thing that mattered.

27 Years (Thoughts on School Culture, Part II)

27 years ago I was 21.  My dad was my age currently - 48.  I don’t recall what he was doing at that time of his life, but I know that I was not in a good place. I had graduated high school and taken a year - or maybe two - off, working odd jobs and not liking too many of them. I had decided that I would move back home after living in what I can only call a “drug house,”

where people were using their kids as mules, and
I was waking up to people shooting heroin into their veins, and
snorting cocaine into their nostrils off of broken shards of mirror, and
I was the only one to somehow still be holding down a job.

And while I didn’t think about it at the time, I am now very thankful that my mother even let me move back home.  I decided to enroll at the local community college, and begin working at my stepfather’s gas station, pumping gas and doing oil changes and tire rotations and minor automobile things of that nature. I was not a mechanic, and had no plans of being a mechanic, although at one point I do recall entertaining ideas of taking the business over.  I’m glad I didn’t, though.

Every decision I made from that point on - as a teacher, a Dean, an assistant principal, principal - all led back to those days in my troubled youth and early twenties, days where drug dealers were my mentors and the only time I ever looked anyone in the eye was when I was trying to pass off that I was telling the truth to avoid getting beat up or killed.

While those days are long gone now, and I am the first one in my family to achieve the status of Doctor, the memories still haunt me, still motivate me, still remind me of what could have been...

And so I use them.  I use the memories and I use my experiences and I use what I know internally to be good and true and right... I use all of this with what I bring forward every day onto the high school campus.

It is what I lean on when leaning into a kid who is

failing or
making excuses or
not pulling his weight or
allowing things to happen to him instead of the other way around...

It is what I know about building culture. Because this is the first step.  This is where you begin.  You have to know what you are bringing with you every day, what you are putting out there every day, what you are leaning on every day, before you can ever begin talking about culture, before you can ever begin to understand how to change a culture, or to know what it smells like or feels like or looks like.

I brought my dad into this a few paragraphs ago.  There are some obvious reasons why he showed up today, and some not-so-obvious ones as well.  One of the not-so-obvious reasons is that I have not seen him in over 5 years.
Until today, that is, when we met for lunch.
And so he was on my mind and I had to write about him so that I would be ready for our meeting.

While that lunch meeting with my dad is not the subject of this entry (good fodder for a future post, however), he does play into this Culture Equation.  He does have a part to play.

It's in what I bring every day.  I need to recognize it.
It's in what I put out there every day.  I need to be able to name it.
It's in my work with students and teachers every day.  I need to be able to understand it.
It's in my blood and my emotions and my head and my heart.  I need to be able to harness it.

It's the energy that we bring to the school campus every day.  If we don't know it, we don't know ourselves.  If we don't know ourselves, we can't possibly begin to know others.  If we aren't able to get to know others, we can't begin to recognize and understand culture.

Thoughts on School Culture, Part I

What I understand about culture today is not very different from what I thought about it 5 or even 10, 15 years ago when I first started out in administration.  I hadn't really thought about it much before then, however.  When I taught, and when I was the Dean of Students at a middle school, what I thought most about was what I was going to do that day - survival stuff.  Now, it seems all I think about is the culture of the place and what it looks like, feels like, smells like - to both outsiders and insiders alike.  People ask how you know what the culture of a school is like, and to be honest, there really is no data to show that.  There is no possible way - not even through a survey - that you can measure the culture of as school in order to tell how that school is doing in this category.  The only one sure way to know, is to spend as much time as possible within the four walls of that school, with those teachers and adults, with those kids in their classrooms and in the cafeteria and hallways and at athletic and performing arts events.  This is the only way you will know for sure what the culture of a building is like.  And trust me, you will know.

The first time I really started paying attention to this phenomenon known as culture was when I was offered the principalship of W.J. Murphy Elementary School.  It was a bright, chilly afternoon in early January of 2003 and my principal, who was my first real mentor and fellow administrator, had called his admin team into the office to tell us he was leaving; he had taken a principalship at a neighboring high school.  We were shocked, I remember, and didn't know quite what to make of it.  I was too new in these shoes, but did the only thing I thought of to do - congratulated him and asked if he would write me a letter of recommendation.

By early May of that year, as we were wrapping up at the middle school, I had been on a couple of job interviews and finally accepted the elementary school position at Murphy Elementary.  I remember the interview clearly.  At least 15 people were sitting around a conference room table in the district office basement.  At the head of the table sat the assistant superintendent and the Mayor of the town.  I have always had much respect for principals, but to call the Mayor in?  Wow.  This must be some gig.

A month later, as I'm moving myself into the new office - the first real office, with an actual principal's desk and the word PRINCIPAL carved into a nameplate on the office door, who should give me a call and invite me out to lunch, but the very same Mayor who sat at the head of the interview table and asked questions I was sure I had gotten wrong.  I shared this with her when we sat down together for lunch as the agreed-upon day arrived, and she just laughed and told me that there were candidates who were much better suited for the job of elementary principal - those with actual elementary principal experience, for example - but at the end of the day, what it came down to for every single person sitting down at that interview table, was:

my personality and ability to speak truth and life into every single question,
the fact that I looked at every single person around the table
and held their gaze when speaking to them,
the way I remembered each person
and thanked them by name at the end of the grueling, two-hour interview that day.

I may not have had the experience, but I was honest about what I did and did not know, and offered them something different - something they had been missing for a long time: a fresh outlook and a cheerful disposition.  That was it.  That is what the Mayor of Round Lake Park disclosed to me at our lunch date that day in June as I was preparing to take on my first principalship.

I have carried that memory with me for the last 16 years - the Mayor's words to me, how she made me feel, the trust she and others were putting in me to lead and work alongside those teachers, those children, those parents and community members.  That was really the first time I began thinking about culture and what culture is, what it means, how it feels, what it looks like on a day to day basis.

The first day of school that year was an eye opener for me in terms of culture.  As I walked the lines of children awaiting the morning bell telling them it was time to file in and get our year started, a father walked up up to me and said, "I can tell I already don't like you."  A teacher approached me later that morning on break while her students were at Art and said, "This is a really toxic culture here, I hope you know what you've walked into."

I didn't know it at the time, but I would need to call up those warm and fuzzy feelings from my lunch date with the Mayor many times that year...

#OneWord 2019 - Commit

The post that follows contains select events and experiences that stood out from 2018.  This is NOT a resolution post.  I don't make resolutions.  Instead, I break them.  Like, for example, the fact that I don't regularly write in this space as much as I should.  That is probably someone's resolution: to write on my blog daily.  If I resolved to do this, it would get broken.  There is no doubt.

So let's see where this goes.

2018 Highlight Reel:
1. Leaving the comfort of middle school life and seeking a position at the high school level
      (in a previous post, I wrote about how the opportunity called to me; I wasn't the one looking);
2.)  Adjusting to life with 4 adopted children (we are still adjusting, by the way - kids who come
       from traumatic environments never stop being kids from traumatic environments);
3.) Our son's 18th birthday and the subsequent meaning of this event (college searches, the
      realization that our youngest biological child would, most likely, be leaving home at the end of
      his Senior year);
4.) The marriage of our daughter and her storybook wedding in Rye, Colorado (our decision to drive
      cross-country from our home in Illinois to the wedding in Colorado with all of the kids in a
      rented 12-passenger van is the subject of another post...);
5.) The selling of our beloved Turnberry home and subsequent October 31 move (yes, we moved on
      Halloween) to the Cobblestone home just one month after our daughter's wedding adventure...
6.) Hosting Thanksgiving Dinner for 18 a mere three weeks after moving in to the new house (the
      top half of our double oven broke down on Thanksgiving morning; there was still lots to be
      thankful for, however).

I mentioned before that I break resolutions.  I see no point in resolving to eat healthier when I know darn well that if my son offers to go and bring back ice cream, I will probably say yes.  This doesn't mean that I don't know the value of eating healthier (which I do), only that I am a sucker for ice cream... and for people buying it for me.

What I DO see the point in, however, is making commitments. 
You commit to something, you better live by it. 
It's stickier. 
I also know that it's what many people are afraid of - Commitments. 
It's taking a piece of yourself and putting it out there for all to see and no matter what...
no matter what, not taking it back. 
It's a very vulnerable place to be. 
I get it. 
But committing to something, to someone, shows that you understand the value of that person, that thing. 
A commitment means that your word is your bond, not meant to be broken. 
It becomes you. 
It is who you are. 
This is very different from a resolution, whereby you resolve to get better, to do more, to do less, etc.

I look back at my Highlight Reel from 2018 and I begin to wonder what the tape for 2019 will look like.  I know it will contain more of the same and, indeed, I hope it does.  It's the path we are on, the path we have chosen, the path that He has selected for us and so we will follow.

But what I can Commit to is to get out in front of that path and Lead from it.  What does this mean, to Commit to Leading from the Path you are on?  On the one hand, it's a submission to be content where I am at in life - to slow down and enjoy what we have, what we have been gifted with; I do believe that there is a great need for us to slow down and just Be.  On the other hand, it means that I still understand my responsibility as a Leader.  As such, it is my honor and my duty to figure out how to be content on the path, and still lead from it. 

I don't always follow my own advice.  As I mentioned before, I break resolutions more than I stick with them.  But I do, at the start of this New Year - 2019 - Commit.  I Commit to:

Being in the Moment
Leading with Heart
Building strong Relationships
Understanding the Path I am on
Listening for Clarity
Being Content
Just Being

#OneWord 2019 - Commit

Parenting and the Principal

Very REAL Life, Part I

I need to tell you about my life as principal.
Particularly from the standpoint of this life as husband, dad and foster/adoptive parent.
And the daughter I have who is sitting in prison.

It is the winter of 2009.  I had just been accepted into the Doctoral program at National Louis University, and was heading to an informational meeting about the program when my wife called.  I was pulling into the high school where our cohort would be spending a lot of class hours together over the next few years, excited about this journey my family had agreed was the best time for me to embark upon, even more ecstatic to be the first in my family to achieve this prestigious degree.

We didn't realize the road I was about to travel was actually riddled with potholes, detours, wrong turns, and dead ends.

My wife can barely speak.
It seems like a lifetime, though it is actually 10 minutes on the phone with her,
trying to calm her down,
sitting in my Volvo with the engine turned off (why did I turn the engine off?),
cohort members filing in for our first meeting together,
my breath visible in the cold air that envelops me,
before she is finally able to tell me that our daughter was involved in something too horrific for words.

Someone has been murdered.
She was at the scene of the crime.
There would be a trial.
A public defender.
An outraged community.
And heartbreak.
There would be heartbreak.

As parents, you don't ever expect things like this.  Things that throw your life completely out of whack.  I mean, you know that things happen, that there is bound to be something in your life that, when it happens, will leave people reeling and trying to find answers and learning how to grieve and then finding their way again.

The problem with this was... well, the problem with this, was that she was our daughter.
And there were no answers.
At least, there were no answers that we were willing to accept.

And there was the problem with this very moment.
In the car.
On the phone.
And the rest of our children.
And this degree.
What do I do?
Do I cancel, put it off until the air clears?
Until things get... better?
Would things get better?

Finally!

I am visited by two former Seniors on a recent Friday in early June.  They have been out of school for only a short time, having graduated three weeks prior.  We stay in touch because, well, that's one of the main reasons I am in this profession - to make a lasting difference in the lives of students.  But it's not only the students; it's their families as well.  I attend their graduation parties, keep up to date on their life happenings, I even recently attended the wedding and reception of one of my former students whom I had taught when he was in the 6th grade.  He's now 28.  

But this is what is required of this job.  We are in the business of making lasting impressions.  For anyone who doesn't believe this to be true, and that your only job as an educator is to impart knowledge and provide kids with information that they could just as easily find online, you are sorely mistaken.  I could easily insert here all of the research that proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that relationships matter and that students will learn more from you and remember more of the content you present them with if they actually like you and feel that you actually care about them, but this is not that post.

And if we are in the business of making lasting impressions, because we know what is true and right and good for all students, then we know that this is a human endeavor which requires things to be messy and take time and cause vulnerability in the process of developing close bonds. Why would kids want to listen to you if they don't trust you?  Why would parents back you up and support you if they don't believe you have their child's best interests in mind and at heart?  Sure, they don't have a choice but to send their children to school.  There are compulsory attendance laws people have to abide by.  But that doesn't mean that kids have to learn.

And I'm off track here, but make no apologies.  Two seniors.  Visiting me.  In my office on a recent Friday in June.  That's where we were.  I am not surprised that they are here.  I never am.  It's almost expected that they will come and visit.  And stay awhile.  Which they do.  And they start talking.

In the course of conversation (they stay for over two hours), I work on my laptop and finish cleaning my office.  I have two weeks of vacation coming up and we talk as I work.  They tell me what they have been up to, the adventures they have been on, how their families are doing (one has a brother who was seriously ill but is finally, after months of being bed-ridden and receiving homebound tutoring, on the mend; the other has a mother she hasn't seen in months and is hoping to be reunited with before she goes off to college in the Fall), and about their preparations for post-high school.  They are both going a large state university.  Different ones, and they talk about their plans for how they will continue to visit one another.  They've got it all figured out, down to how many miles and minutes it will take to get to one another on holidays and long weekends.

And one of them says something to me that strikes a chord, and here is where this story ends.  He says, after finishing a long, elaborate story of a recent weekend escapade in which he shares more than I really need to hear, "We're finally free, Dr. P.  We're finally able to enjoy life, Dr. P."

He doesn't realize that what he says will leave a lasting, burning impression on me, and I know that many kids feel the same way.  I recognize that many kids, upon graduating their Senior year, feel as if they own the world and are ready for "real life to begin."  I am pretty sure, looking back, that I probably felt the same way and lived it up for a while upon graduation.  I barely made it after all; I was definitely ready to be free of 6:00am wake-ups and cramming for tests and being surprised about pop quizzes and having to work on group projects with kids who didn't like me and the Dean's Office and taking the bus with its smell of hot plastic seat coverings forever etched into my nasal cavity... the list goes on.

I don't know what the point is, except to say that I know this high school experience.  I can feel this experience in my soul and remember it clearly to this day and how I felt most days.  And that one phrase, uttered by that one 18 year old upon having recently graduated: "We're finally able to enjoy life, Dr. P," will stick with me for a very long time.

And if it is as I think it is, then we are able to create a different experience for kids, write a very different narrative with kids, get to know them, love them, be vulnerable for them, and ask ourselves:

"What do we need to do TODAY to make sure that kids can't wait to come back TOMORROW."  What do we need to do TODAY to ensure that kids - during the school year, not once they've graduated - can feel that they are enjoying life.  That they don't need to wait until they graduate before real life can finally begin.

What is Learning... My Seriously-Rambling-Reflection-Because-It's-Too-Quiet-Around-Here-Post

I get lost in wondering.  I mean, really lost.  I wonder what happened to the year, I wonder what is going on with the world, I wonder what will become of the Seniors we just graduated, and I wonder about the future of public education and what it means, considering the ever-changing landscape that is the world of work.  Just to name a few things.

The school year is over; at least, for the students it is.  Having just completed my first year as principal of the local high school right down the street from my house (and the high school where my son attends, but that's another story), I have a lot of time to reflect.  I mean, now that the year is over and I can catch my breath for a while and wonder - not for the first time - "what ever are we doing?"

I have had the luxury and honor of serving as building principal at all three levels of public education: elementary, middle, and now high school.  This was the completion of my 16th year as a school administrator, and 21st year in the field of public education.  I am still as active as ever, still get excited over great new ideas, still the #1 cheerleader around the schoolhouse, still get told I have way too much energy at 6:30 in the morning, and am still wondering what in the hell we are doing most days.

Take summer vacation, for example.  This is a minor example, and doesn't encapsulate my current thoughts about the present year recently finished, but it really highlights some of my frustration and state of delirium over where we are at and where we really should be.  I will be the first one to tell you that I understand the value and benefits of recess, of unstructured play, of time off and weekends and holiday trips and extended time with family and friends.  I also knew the rewards of summer "down-time" to go exploring, camping, traveling, and learning.

Yes, even learning.
But right there is part of the problem.
And it's a big one.
It's where I get stuck.

Let me elaborate by breaking down my own summer vacations when I was a teenager.  My mom and dad were divorced.  My dad lived in California, as did my grandparents and my aunt - his parents and sister.  Summer was the only time my brother and I were able to see this part of our family, and couldn't wait until summer so that we could spend three solid weeks out in sunny CA.  It was the best time of our lives, what we looked forward to the most, and where we created the memories that will last a lifetime.

And I'm conflicted, because it was also the time when the most learning took place.  I'm conflicted because, for starters, I think having three months of summer vacation sends the message to kids that learning can take a short, sweet break over the months of June, July and August, and that soon enough "real schooling" will resume again.

And yet, the stuff I remember most came from my summer vacations with my brother and dad and grandparents out on the West Coast.

The stuff I remember the most.
I need to repeat that and let it sink in.
Why is that the stuff I remember the most?

What is it about school and "learning" and memory that causes a thing like summer vacation - three months of the year - to have a longer lasting impact on a life (in many cases, not all) than an academic year - nine months of the year.

I'm just reflecting here.  I realize perfectly well that what I've just done is conflict my own narrative.  And there's a perfectly good reason for this.  It's part of my summer wonderings and reflections and thoughts about the year and about education and where it takes place most powerfully and why we can't create that thing all year round.

I was not Looking for Change

It's change, really.  That's what new is all about.  Change.  For some it happens regularly, for others not regularly enough.  I happen to fall into the former category, where change comes about not as a result of some thing that just happens to you and you don't see it coming, but rather an intentional, sweeping movement that is planned and thought out (not always with identified results, but thought out nonetheless) and, therefore, meant to be.

Change - whether intentional or consequential, planned or just part of life's course - is always meant to be; it's a part of life, a part of how things naturally happen.  Without it we would not grow, would not attain goals, would not, well... change.

And yet, even though we know it is coming, and we know it helps us to grow and to stretch, and we understand the consequences of not changing when times call for something different, it is hard.

This time for me, however, I was not looking for change.  It came for me.

I did not choose to move on,
I was happy
and successful
and content
and challenged
right where I was at.

But as my good friend Koriann writes to me, in her reflection at the end of the school year,
It was time for change "... because the time is right and he is called."

Those words stuck with me, sunk into me, sat with me and next to me for a long while.

As I begin something new - this exciting new opportunity where I will have the privilege of being the principal of a high school I know of only from the perspective of a parent, as it is the school my kids attend - I know and understand that this is the path.  The time was right, and as difficult as it was to say goodbye, and to say thank you to those who have meant so much to me and who have taught me so much about myself as an educator and as a person, this is still the right choice for me and I will only grow because of it.  It is intentional, sweeping, new, meant to be.  It is Change.  And I am so very grateful.

#OneWord2017

Instead of a New Year resolution this year, I am embracing #OneWord2017 to encompass my goals, both personally and professionally.

As I think of my One Word, so many others come to mind; I can’t pick just one.  But I will. Because that is the challenge. So it is kind of like a resolution - those things we resolve to do as the New Year rolls around and we struggle to think of something we will promise ourselves and others to do, to stick to, because it is the New Year.  And then we will feel bad about ourselves sometime around March or April because we didn’t stick to it.  We forgot.  We got busy.  There was too much going on. Life got in the way.

One Word we can do. One Word is just, well… One Word.  Easy to remember. Easy to commit to. Easy to remind ourselves of on a daily basis.  It’s just after all, One Word.  

So I begin the quest to find the word - the One Word that will define me in 2017. It must be something simple. It must be applicable to my professional and my personal life - something people can feel, something others can really acknowledge that, upon being in my presence, they understood.  So here is my list.  This is where I need to begin:

Live

Pause

Reflect

Commit

Presence

Support

Encourage

Motivate

Inspire

Culture

Opportunity

Embrace

Shine

Climb

Relentless

Pursue

Hope

Progress

This is my list.  And after much thought and consideration, I begin to think that maybe my word is not in this list. It should be jumping out at me, SCREAMING at me, making me understand that THIS IS MY WORD!  Take it and RUN with it! Make others believe!

But it’s not, and I have to begin anew.  Or do I?

Because there it was, in the midst of the words I had written:

Believe. The One Word that will define my 2017.  

I Believe in the power of teachers to motivate and encourage their students to be the best they can be.

I Believe in the ability of students to rise above our expectations of them and shine like the brightest stars.

I Believe in myself, and my capacity to see and understand the needs of my teachers, students, community, and family.

I will DO what I BELIEVE in with confidence!

I Hold This to be True: That we can accomplish whatever we put our minds to because of our BELIEF in one another and in ourselves.  

So think about it.  Here is your challenge: Instead of making a list of resolutions this year, pick One Word that defines your goals, dreams, ambitions and who you want to be in 2017.  I’m thinking this might be a challenge for students as well… Who’s up for this?  Could be a great whole-school project, and an opportunity to get creative!

Looking forward to hearing your #OneWord2017!

Real Writers. Real Writing. Real Voices

Same 7th grade classroom.

Different group of students.  

It is a warm afternoon and the fans are on.  

I think back to my days as a 7th grader.  

My teacher's name was Mrs. Zurn.  

She passed away in the mid-90's and I remember her clearly for her loud voice; 

Her booming voice and I remember her because she used to make us write.

A lot.

And it was always about the things that she wanted us to write about, never about the things that I CARED about like music and motorcycles and the ATV's that I spent my weekends on, flying through the cornfields and woods that I lived next door to.  Or my parent's divorce and my dad moving to California and how much I missed him.  We couldn't write about that stuff. 

Instead we wrote about St. Thomas and our favorite lunch, and if we could be anything when we grew up what would it be, and Mother Theresa and what our favorite color was and why, and writing a letter to Pope John Paul II. 

I went to a Catholic school. 

You can probably tell.

Today, though.  I want to talk about today, and the opportunities these kids have to write.  And I know how hard writing is, and as much as I didn't like it when Mrs. Zurn made us write about the topics she chose for us to write about, the one thing it did do for us, was help us get into a habit of writing.  A lot.  

Which is what I hope kids find, that writing can be such a wonderful, beautiful way to express yourself if you just practice it. 

A lot.  

And it doesn't matter what it is.  

Just as long as it is something.   

And it doesn't matter who it is for.  

As long as it's for yourself first.  

YOUR voice is the only one that matters.  

You need to know that.  

You need to know how important it is for us to hear your voice.  

So speak up.  

Get blogging.  

It matters.

7th Grade Blogging Awesomeness

So, I am doing one of my favorite things today, and that is getting into classrooms and being with kids and teachers.  But even better, today I am working with teachers and getting kids writing on their own Blog site! How cool is that!  Will is writing about his cat (just kidding, Will), Quinn is writing about how he hopes his Fantasy Football is better than mine (I have Matthew Stafford as my starting QB, Quinn...), and it goes on and on.  What I am REALLY super excited about, though, is the fact that I get to do this every day.  For a living.  Like, this is my life and I get to spend my days with awesome middle schoolers and middle school teachers.  We work hard, but we also play hard.  This is definitely where it's at.

My hope is that, through this blogging experience, they find voices as writers and realize they ALL have something important to say.  They don't have to be adults to have a voice.  Just one VOICE can make a difference, and I guess that is what we blog for also - to make a difference in someone's life.  To move someone with our words.  From the clicking of the keyboards around the room, my guess is that they are off to a good start.