The past few days have provided great opportunity for reflection, horror and inspiration. As I noted in a Twitter post last night, at one point I almost felt overwhelmed.
What led to this overwhelming feeling? Well, it all started with a Mindshift article titled “Why Discipline Should Be Aligned With A School’s Learning Philosophy.” As I read that article, I reflected on my early teaching career. I felt a combination of shame and horror as I though about my interactions with students and administrators regarding student discipline. As I painfully revisited those interactions, I felt like I was “dreamwalking” in an episode of Jon Harper‘s My Bad titled “I Was A Hypocrite with a Double Standard for Learning and It Made Me Weak.” Mentally, I apologized to those students, and even attempted to reach out to former administrators to apologize for Jeff See 1.0.
If we give students the opportunity to improve or correct mistakes in every other learning area except discipline, what message do we send them about school?
After allowing myself 15 minutes to feel self-pity and remorse, I started reflecting about the difference in my academic teaching practices and my discipline teaching practices as a young teacher. Ultimately, I asked myself “If we give students the opportunity to improve or correct mistakes in every other learning area except discipline, what message do we send them about school?” The English teacher in me cringes at the awkwardness of that sentence, but at the time it felt “right.”
So, Instead of my usual short, pithy comment when sharing articles on social media, I share the article on Facebook with that poorly worded sentence.
Then I continued with my article dig – using the Nuzzle App – and came across a fantastic post by George Couros titled “Finding Inspiration in Yourself.” In the article, George highlighted the challenge of “trying to inspire others to action, when you can’t find ways to inspire yourself.” The piece really resonated with me, and I started thinking about my new role in my new building in my new district and wondered how I could inspire myself to reflect more and share my risks, struggles, and challenges with my new team of educators.
As I wrestled with that thought, my PLN friend, Mark French replied to my comment on Facebook.
Hmmm…why would someone want to steal something I said? Nonetheless, I told Mark he could use the quote.
And I went back to revisit George’s post. George said, “Take a breath and think about where you are today, and then think about where you have come from. It would be easy to think about the negatives, but try to focus on things that you have overcome and that right now, and find growth.” That took me back to Mark’s request, and I reread my original comment. Despite the rough wording, that was my original thinking about a topic with which I struggled so often early in my teaching career. The new lens I have as a building admin has me asking questions I could never have asked as a young teacher trying to manage five classes and learn a new curriculum.
At that moment, I could not help but feel inspired and realize that something I experienced and though made someone else think. Suddenly, I finally understood what Angela Maiers has told us for years.
I won’t get carried away. It was one original thought and it resonated with a few of my Facebook friends and PLN members. More importantly, I can see how far I have come and how I now make sure that students know and staff know they are important and matter. And I have more thinking to do about the mixed messages we send kids about school when we allow them to “fail” and improve with every aspect of school but discipline.
I have to see if I can find those former students now and apologize in person. I’m so sad that they only knew Jeff See 1.0. Jeff See 5.0 cares much more about them as people and understands that despite my “cutting edge” thinking about allowing students to make mistakes in their academic work and correct them to learn, I absolutely failed them when it came to discipline learning.
And to my former administrators: Keith Rodda, Tom Parker, Chuck Grable, Pete Cernohous, Jay Jones, Tom Wissink, Julie Mosher, Matt Zimmermann, Tim Doleysh, Lexi Ballweg, Ann Schultz, and Erin Kohl…I’m sorry it took me so long to understand. I wish you, too, had worked with Jeff See 5.0.
Learn To Lead 