Being a school principal today isn't easy. Whether it's your first year or you've been at it for decades, the challenges facing principals are, well, unprecedented. (Sorry, COVID word.)
Don't get me wrong, the rewards of serving in this position are plentiful. The trick is, you've got to have a plan and you've got to stick to it. On days when you get thrown off, you've got to bounce back. Unfortunately, most people don't do this, and they struggle:
Most principals don't take their own advice. Mine: Commit.
As part of each morning's daily announcements, I recite these school-wide commitments:
We commit to being safe.
We commit to respecting ourselves, one another, and our school.
We commit to doing our jobs.
Now the first two on here are pretty self-explanatory. They're also fairly consistent practices, from one student or staff member to the next. It's the third bullet point that throws some people for a loop. We commit to...doing our jobs?
In the 2020s, this seems like a loaded statement. Do our jobs...what exactly does that mean?
Here are 3 items on which I focus each day, 3 ways I can take my own advice, and do my job.
Job #1: Focus on students and staff being safe.
In middle school, being safe and feeling safe are two basic life needs.
With these in place, all else is possible. A staff that feels safe leads to students feeling safe. When principals focus on others being safe, and of even greater importance, feeling safe, everyone succeeds and thrives. What does this look like? It begins with bike riding kids wearing helmets and crossing at crosswalks. This extends to everyone's identity being honored and celebrated, as appropriate. Tending to people's sense of identity, in whichever capacity they may choose to share it, helps to create a safe and secure learning space.
Job #2: Focus on students and staff being healthy.
Proper sleep, nutrition, hydration, and exercise are critical to everyone's health and wellness. Beyond that, pausing to be still and mindful, to appreciate our surroundings, and treating our mental health in the same way as our physical health are critical. By normalizing mental fitness, we can help students and staff learn about and understand adolescent brain development as much as we do, physical development. Understanding this will open conversations about executive functioning, which can lead to empowering students to manage and monitor themselves as they acquire ways to organize themselves, managing time and priorities. While a not-yet-fully developed pre-frontal cortex will occasionally, interfere with an adolescent's sense of success, helping others appreciate this aspect of health will add a dimension to teaching and learning that promotes health and sense of self.
Job #3: Focus on students and staff learning.
The number one job each of us is responsible for in a school is learning.
Learning energizes and inspires us to be better, and do better, for ourselves and for others. Committing and recommitting each day to this, inspires hope. So on the toughest days, or on the days we find most challenging, the most important thing we can do is to commit. Commit to being safe. Commit to being healthy. Commit to learning. Do Your Job.
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