Intercultural Responsiveness

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Remember that scene from “The Shining” when you see the tap tap tappy from Jack’s typewriter as he worked on his novel was actually him stroking the keys in order to repeatedly etch this phrase on paper? Cree-py. When I worked one summer as a bellhop at the hotel which inspired Stephen King to write that novel, I was lulled often into the terror of that story: Losing one’s mind due to the lack of stimulation required to feel human.

Now, it’s probably a bit of a stretch to think that schools do this. I mean, after all, let’s be honest, Jack had just a few more issues than feeling bottled up. However, let’s also reflect as educators around how often we’ve heard this phrase from students … “School is so boring,” as well as how often we’ve dismissed it with comments related to blaming a student for simply not being engaged.

We’re in that place once again in education where we’ve allowed the pendulum to swing so far that it somehow got stuck instead of making it’s way back to normalcy. Saturating students with literacy and math, throughout their entire day, applying more and more interventions, and measuring their growth with unhealthy fervor like mad scientists banging around their labs.

It takes brave and courageous people to do it, but at the top of our lungs, it’s time to shout out to everyone, “Slow down! Stop!” I mean, we’re all so used to thinking this is just the way it is, we aren’t even recognizing our own crazy. Listen to a student’s story about what’s happening in their life and actually be responsive to their needs, wants, interests, passions? Whatever, we’ve got too much to do.

Schools should be magical. Schools can be magical. We just need to make time for it. Don’t tell me we haven’t the time, because we certainly make the time for all things not magical. Seriously, it’s time to believe again.

There are times when we are absolutely nowhere. ~ Sam Seaborn (The West Wing)

When the tears started welling up and falling from the student’s eyes, I knew I had done it. With a raised voice full of power and control, I broke that student to the core. I crushed that smug and disrespectful tone. I knew I could do it, I knew it was in me. How did I do it? Well, smugly with disrespect, of course. So, as quickly as the moment of pride arrived, it dissolved to embarrassment. And, all that was left was me feeling ashamed, sitting next to a young person crying in my office, feeling shamed.

Maybe your moments don’t look exactly or even anything like that, but you have your moments as well. We all do. It may come out in different ways with different people, but it still comes out. And, there’s a reason for that: We make mistakes. It’s who we are.

Too often we’re so focused on what someone else is doing wrong, we fail to recognize our own faults. We get fixated on convincing others that if they would just speak and act the way we want and need them to speak and act, we forget that they’re feeling the same way. We perseverate on perfection, knowing perfection is unattainable. We feel angry and lost and not ourselves. We feel nowhere.

For every story like the one I shared, however, we all have dozens more telling another tale. Smiles and high fives, hugs and tears of joy, triumphs of the human spirit through all forms of adversity. We just don’t think about them as much. We just don’t concern ourselves with those as much as when we fail. It’s all part, though, of this evolving novel we call life. Both the good and the bad. And, there’s a reason we speak less of the good, and it’s a simple but very powerful reason: It’s the norm … the good is the norm … the good is the plot of the story.

You see, we are somewhere.

I chuckled to myself when I read the comments under a school district’s posting that there would be no snow day. Almost as much as I did when I heard about parents being upset with the school for their child being disciplined for cussing out a teacher and punching another student in the face. But, not nearly as much as I did when I heard that our public school system was hopelessly failing our children, our future, our way of life.

What must it be like to have all the answers, to deflect from the real issues, to place blame everywhere else? How must it feel to go through life with the certainty that you are always right? If people are passing around some sweet elixir I’m unaware of, then please, by all means, share the wealth. I’ll take a swig of that. And then, after I sober up and return from my little jaunt to Fantasy Island, I’ll be ready to mellow out and soak in a bit of humility.

We want to fix things nearly as much as we want to fix people. If there’s nothing wrong with it, we’ll poke at it until it breaks. If someone seems to have a weak spot, we’ll go after it until it becomes a gaping wound. All for the sake of fixing in order to make ourselves feel better, we tear things and people down. Wild with it we are, all of us, each and every single one of us. Consumed. Fixated. Hell bent on destruction.

I don’t know much, I really don’t. But this, this I do know: We need to listen more, we need to love more.

It doesn’t really matter to me if you roll your eyes, call it corny, say it’s just wishful thinking. I could care less if you want to respond cynically, speak harshly, or use this as an opportunity to destruct. The thing is, you all know as well as I do that listening more and loving more will take us where we need to go. And, where we need to go isn’t down, it’s up. Up takes faith and hope and encouragement. Up takes courage, not cowardice. Up takes a willingness to be wrong.

I think we all want to be right about this one, because this one is all we have.

This is the sixth installment of a series making an appearance occasionally in this blog designed to give some specific guidance regarding how to work with an organization on intercultural responsiveness. The first five installments can be found here: Nuts & Bolts: Part 5, here: Nuts & Bolts: Part 4, here: Nuts & Bolts: Part 3, here: Nuts & Bolts: Part 2, and here: Nuts & Bolts: Part 1

This work isn’t easy. The conversations are difficult. The topics are challenging. The comfort zone isn’t where we learn and we grow. The work isn’t meant to be easy.

Talk about race, ethnicity, class, gender, ability, sexual orientation, power, oppression, institutional racism, and the like around your closest family and friends, and it isn’t smooth as silk. Do the same among even somewhat similar minded individuals, and the road gets a little bumpy. Continue to extend that further away from your happy place, and the waters become extremely choppy.

My oldest daughter has a word she likes to use when I do something that makes her feel embarrassed (not that I frequently do things that make her feel embarrassed … well, not too frequently), and she says it in her own unique way. “Awkward” is the word, and if you’re ever around teenagers, that unique way of saying it makes sense to you. Well, it’s the awkward that we need to embrace.

If we fail to acknowledge the embarrassments, the discomforts, the fears, the risks, the pains we go through when learning about ourselves and others – our similarities and our differences – then we are ignoring what can be a very useful tool. Barriers can be a launching point of truly honest conversation, as our vulnerability demonstrates not weakness, but rather willingness.

Dare to tell the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth.

“We can choose to throw stones, to stumble on them, to climb over them, or to build with them.” ~ William Arthur Ward

Quite often I find myself shaking my head in frustration with how a conversation has gone with someone regarding a discipline issue with their child. I’m not sure what I think is worse: The parental reaction that seems to demonstrate only defense or disinterest, or the response from a child’s father or mother that appears to be an extreme overreaction. Well, O.K., so maybe what’s the worst is when the reaction doesn’t fit precisely into my expectation of an “appropriate” response. Now I’ve got to really put some mental and physical energy into this. Now I have to consider how someone else might be feeling about the situation. Now I have to ponder perspective. And then it’s my child that I’m getting a phone call about, and I quickly recognize that I’m not equipped to respond the same way in any circumstance. I’m no longer the educator discussing discipline – now I’m the parent trying to navigate what has happened, how I’m going to work with my daughter, and (right or wrong) how it reflects on me.

The world of public education has been turned upside down in recent years. Now, more than ever, educators are viewed less as leaders sacrificing so much for the benefit of young people, and more as lazy workers getting paid too much to fail our children. I listen to the criticisms and I get sick to my stomach with the vile and ignorant comments spewed from the mouths of people I can only believe are either extremely misinformed, or hell bent on destruction. Rushing to the defense of the teachers I work with, I’m crushed under the weight of an unfairly critical view of me and my colleagues. And then somewhere in the blur, I hear the comments about arrival and departure time, about communication not being “my job,” and about excuses for not changing in order to benefit our students, my students, my child. Now I‘m the administrator frustrated with staff, but only until I’m the administrator frustrated with administration, but only until I’m the person recognizing the struggle each level is facing – including that level far away from the offices of our government, our district, our school building, our own.

I’m a husband, a father, a son, a brother, an uncle, a nephew, a cousin, a friend. I’m an administrator, a teacher, an educator, a colleague, a professional. I have roles at work and at home and in life that don’t even fit in a title. I wear so many hats, and I’m required to look through so many lenses, and sometimes it gets so confusing. But I’m not alone, and I have to make an effort. I have to. I want to. I will.

This is a photograph of me and my brother. The younger, cuter one is me. I’m quickly approaching my 20th year as an educator. It’s amazing to consider how fast two decades have passed as I’ve journeyed through different states, districts, and levels as a coach, a teacher, and an administrator. So much has changed, and yet, in many ways, so much has stayed basically the same. I know that’s both good and bad, depending on how you look at it. Regardless, here are 5 key things I’m thinking about as I head into the 2013 portion of this 2012-13 school year.

1. We trust our children with educators every single day of the school year, so let’s start acting like it. If teachers are the villains so many people make them out to be, then why are we so willing to hand our children over to them?

2. What students need to know and be able to do isn’t complicated; however, the students are. Spending time renaming and repackaging the same old stuff isn’t going to make a difference, nor will increasing how much we assess understanding. Knowing our students, and responding to them, will make all the difference.

3. You get what you pay for. Running a family budget isn’t the same as running a school district budget. Stop saying governmental agencies such as public schools need to tighten their belts in the same way families do, unless you’re ready as a family to provide the exact same thing as those agencies provide for the good of the whole – and that would be all of the whole.

4. Education doesn’t need fixing – we do. It’s not popular to say how broken we are as a society (not that the other things mentioned here are very popular either); however, until we face this with honesty, accept individual responsibility, and work on ourselves (not others) to be more understanding, loving, and supportive, then we’ll continue to be lost.

5. Young people grow up. We don’t grow up because our parents and educators and other adults in our lives do something magical to us. No, we just grow up. Nurturing is what is needed, not some sort of over the top reaction to every single thing that happens. Discipline is what is needed, not harsher ways of punishing or excluding students from school. Respect is what is needed, not as something that is earned, but something that is given willingly and freely.

Of course I can do better. Of course we can do better. I just hope we stop spending time on that which won’t really make a difference. I just hope we start spending time on that which really will make a difference. I believe. I wouldn’t still be here if I didn’t.

I thought about my girls.

My wife, Cristin, turned 35 on Friday, December 14th, 2012. She was a 4th grade teacher until my youngest daughter, Eden, joined us on December 19th, 2008. A Pinkalicious birthday party on Saturday, December 15th, 2012 marked the 4th year of her life. My oldest daughter, Gwenyth (who blessed us on August 9th, 1999), recently became a teenager, and she gathered with us as family and friends, to celebrate life, to celebrate love.

I thought about my girls. I think about my girls. What would my wife be feeling if she was trying to protect children in her care? What would she have been thinking as she was struck down in the line of duty? What would have been going through the minds of my daughters as their friends were being removed permanently from this world? What would the last look on their faces be, and their last wonderings be, as they realized the end was coming for them?

I thought about me as well. I think about me. As a former elementary school principal, and a current middle school assistant principal, I wonder if I would rush to protect others, knowing that I would likely meet my Maker. Quite honestly, I consider it often. I have the privilege of working with so many children, but many times I am interacting with them and their parents when things are not going well. While most consider me helpful, I’ve far too often had people – young and old alike – express a great deal of anger and hatred toward me. I don’t live or work in fear, but I do live and work in reality.

It can overwhelm a person. Feelings of helplessness, of hopelessness, can drown our spirit. Thinking about it makes us feel so sad, and grateful, and guilty all at the same time. And, then, the debates begin. We observe, and participate in, verbal sparring over what’s wrong, and what must be done to fix it. Answers are sought, not found, and we are left with the feeling of just giving up. So, the cycle continues: Life goes on like normal until the next tragedy that strikes a chord with us puts things at the front of our minds once again. Well, at least for a little while.

Instead of simply giving up, I wonder what we’d actually be willing to give up to bring an end to this depressing and frequent cycle. Would we give up our rights, our money, our lives, to save our own partner and children from being taken from us before we’re ready? Would we give up our pride to yield humbly to another, if it meant saving the life of our family, if it meant saving our own lives, if it meant saving the lives of others? Would we give up our need to be right, our hatred of being wrong, and our unwillingness to listen, if it meant the tragedies that befall ourselves and others may be extinguished? What would you, will you, be willing to give up?

Temptation draws me toward cynicism. While I feel somewhat uncomfortable, I smirk as the debate about guns rage with a smug, self-righteous, and vitriolic rhetoric. I raise my eyebrows when comments fly about holding people responsible for deaths, while at the same time whining about putting any amount of “my” money toward helping provide care and health and education for “those” people. And, then, “those” people are standing over my dead family. So, fixing it becomes about taking away weapons that we feel we have a right to – for defense, for sport, for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for whatever. Fixing it becomes about “those” people taking personal responsibility with little or no resources. Or, fixing it becomes about penalizing more strictly “those” people … long after it’s already over.

I’m not interested in a debate. A debate is just a more civil way of arguing. None of us, in our rational and sane minds, hope to see our loved ones suffer and die, so it doesn’t make much sense to argue about it. No, I’m ready to listen, I’m ready to give, I’m ready to do whatever it takes. Are you?

~ For all lives lost, everywhere and everyday. May each one find the way home again.

“But, who has the national championship banners?” was the smug little reply you’d hear as a Purdue fan bashing Bobby Knight. “Well, you can’t argue with success,” was another gem mentioned on more than one occasion from an Indiana fan when the in-state rivalry heated up (not that it was, is, or ever will be cool). I suppose the words “smug little reply” and “bashing” kind of allude to the nature of the disagreement among Boilermakers and Hoosiers. It’s unhealthy, to quite literally say the least.

I think we all see examples of what could be healthy debates deteriorate quickly into trash talking quite consistently. While infamous in sports and politics, those certainly aren’t the only arenas this scenario plays itself out. We are a people ripe with certainty. Humility enters not into the battlefield of pride. Why is it, I wonder, that we are so unwilling to truly listen to one another, and consider a different viewpoint, in light of the reality that none of us – not one – have it all figured out?

It really is O.K. to disagree. Regardless of how much it might upset Mom around the dinner table, not everyone actually has to see eye to eye on everything. There is a chance that the person you’re arguing with may be right. There’s also a chance that you may be right. Either way, if we’re going to make assumptions based on our own set of beliefs, there’s no opportunity to make a connection, to build a relationship. It’s not about letting go of what you believe in; rather, it’s about allowing others the same privilege you expect to be granted.

Let it breathe. Allow it to percolate. Sit with it. Actually challenge yourself. Now, we can trivialize this and argue that we should spend time examining ideas at the furthest reaches of the spectrum – ones that destruct our moral compass. Or, we can focus on reality, and spend time playing in the sandbox with those we don’t always get along with. Imagine if we did that. Imagine if we got over ourselves just long enough to consider possible what we once thought impossible.

Imagine.

We’re obsessed with student growth and achievement as educators. Education should be focused on student growth and achievement, and educators should be focused on student growth and achievement. But, let’s be honest here: It’s become an all consuming, extremely unhealthy, overly discussed, much degraded, and annoyingly exaggerated obsession. From grade inflation to grade deflation, from excessive assessment to inappropriate use of the results of assessment, from forcing goals on teachers based on output versus input to evaluating teachers based on numbers versus connections, from data pouring out of notebooks to scouring walls that surround us, our obsession has become – well – an obsession.

I wonder what would happen if we put even close this amount of attention given to student growth and achievement to building relationships with students, with parents, with colleagues, with the community. Oh, I know, we immediately visit that place of perpetual apocalyptic thinking: We’re never going to help all students succeed until we hold each and every single teacher accountable to making certain each and every single child is pushed, assessed, graded, growing, and achieving according to whatever the latest standard, benchmark, or formula deems appropriate. Still, I wonder if we can entertain something that puts a little more faith into the reality and certainty of the human condition.

Now, I don’t know what any books say about this (well, actually, I do, but that’s not the point here), but I do know what my experience has proven. Once I had an educator show me that he or she really cared about me, really invested in me, really worked hard at trying to get to know me and to listen to me, I was successful. Once I’ve seen other students express the same things about other educators, they’ve been successful. Once I’ve connected with students on this level, I’ve seen some meaningful steps toward being successful. What about you? How many examples have you seen where these dynamics exist in multiple ways with multiple people, and the students are not actually or ultimately successful?

There’s nothing unique about this post, because there’s nothing unique about my thoughts being shared here. And that, in and of itself, pushes me – and ought to push you – toward wondering if there’s something to really consider here. We’ve long known innately – even when there was no research to back us up – that relationships matter. Our thinking translates into words and then into actions, and this has proven successful time and time and time again. It’s a universal intervention that is difficult to measure, difficult to receive training in, and difficult to measure. But, it’s a universal intervention that works. We know it – in our hearts, in our minds, in our lives – we know it.

Just like everything else, there is no perfect or final answer here. There’s no singular path toward wherever we’re trying to get. There is no reason to put all our weight into only one endeavor. However, our obsession with student growth and achievement has distracted us from what matters most. And, if what matters most isn’t able to get the attention it so richly deserves, we’re not going to see the results we’re hoping to achieve. I hope we can get back on track again. Actually, I believe we will. If there’s one thing for certain in education – like life – it’s change. The pendulum will swing, we’ll find sanity again, and we’ll seek opportunities to truly connect with those we serve. That’s what we do as educators because it’s what we’re called to do, it’s what we’re good at, and it’s the only thing that will ultimately make any difference at all.

This is the fifth installment of a series making an appearance occasionally in this blog designed to give some specific guidance regarding how to work with an organization on intercultural responsiveness. The first four installments can be found here: Nuts & Bolts: Part 4, here: Nuts & Bolts: Part 3, here: Nuts & Bolts: Part 2, and here: Nuts & Bolts: Part 1

I had the opportunity to present with Dr. Maria Gabriel this past summer at the annual education leadership convention of the Colorado Association of School Executives. Our presentation focused on equity and educator effectiveness, and I think you’ll find the information and conversation useful.

Below is a link to the audio synced with our presentation slides. For optimal viewing, please note that you should have high speed internet connection, and the latest QuickTime and browser software installed on your computer. Safari and Firefox may work best, and the recordings are not viewable on an Android device. If this doesn’t work for you, or if you would rather just check out the slides without the audio from our presentation, I’ve included a link for that as well. Enjoy!

Audio synced with presentation slides

Presentation slides