(or… how I try to beat the blahs…)

I can’t help but notice that I wrote three posts of any substance in November, and two of the three were rants. Let’s go ahead and call that a red-flag for where my head has been lately.

Being a principal is a tough gig, and it’s a particularly tough gig in Philadelphia these days where there is a fair amount of uncertainty these days. And after a two and a half year sprint to get SLA going in a district in financial trouble and leadership change, I’ve been tired. That’s no excuse, but it is what it is. I think I’ve been bringing my A-game — or at least my B+ game — to SLA, but the blogging has dropped off. Writing has always been hard for me. I’m a better talker than writer, and that’s never more true than when I’m tired.

But I once said to Will Richardson that this is my reflective journal, and if I’m not writing, I’m not doing the thinking I need to be doing to be an effective leader… so I’m dusting off my fingertips and I’m going to push through to get stuff down. It’s not going to be the deepest stuff I’ve ever written, but there may be value in the muddling-through.

When I was an English teacher, there was a great writing exercise I found called “Ribe Tuckus.” It’s a Yiddish term for “Sit down.” And what you did is sit down, no distractions, and write… you wrote what you thought. You timed yourself, and you didn’t let anything distract you. So that’s where I am. I’m just going to ribe tuckus for a bit and tell you about some of the things I’ve done lately to try to get out of this headspace.

The hard thing is that I’ve come to a realization — I don’t enjoy the day-to-day life of being a principal as much as I enjoyed being a teacher. I loved being a teacher, loved it just about every day. I loved coaching, I loved lesson planning, I loved the collegial nature of where I worked, and I loved that feeling of a really awesome class that just sung. I even loved the insane highs and lows of the job. I loved being a passionate advocate for my ideas in faculty meetings that mattered. I really loved being a teacher.

Being a principal doesn’t have that same kind of visceral nature to the job. You spend a lot of your time problem-solving other people’s things. You spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to allocate limited human and financial resources. You spend a lot of time listening to people vent about problems — many of which you can’t solve because they are systemic or beyond our ability because they deal with issues beyond our walls. And you get to be the disciplinarian, which is never, ever fun or soul-restoring. Moreover, you aren’t the passionate advocate for your own ideas anymore, because if you are, you run the risk of not listening to others’ ideas as carefully as you should… and since, at the end of the day, you aren’t the person who implements the ideas anyway, you really, really can’t do that. And then there’s the paperwork and bureaucracy that can suck your will to live.

But, of course, there’s a “step-back” joy to being a principal… you get to work with teachers to help them better their craft. If you do it right, you get to nurture adults and kids and build an institution of care and of value, and that’s an amazing feeling. And you do get to problem-solve and help lots of people be the people — students and teachers — that they most want to be. And you still get to teach in many ways, just not as directly.

So, over the past few weeks, I’ve tried to make sure that I’m doing some things to keep my own soul fresh, because SLA matters to me, and because I owe it the 260 or so folks who make up the SLA community to be the principal they need me to be.

Here are a few of the things I’ve been trying to do more of:

— I’ve started coaching girls basketball two mornings a week. I owe a debt of thanks to Mr. Rochester, our girls basketball coach for sharing the team with me. That takes a selflessness that few folks have, and he’s wonderful about it. But I love it. I realized how much I missed 6:30 am and all it meant, and while it’s not every day, I’m there enough to help make a difference, and I still love it as much as ever.

— I’m making sure to find time to talk to teachers about general stuff, not just the problems. I love the moments when teachers ask me to work with them to flesh out a curricular idea or to tease out a new way of doing something.

— I get into classrooms in meaningful ways every day. I’m a big fan of “leadership by walking around,” but there’s a difference between the 30 second check-in in a class and five or ten or twenty minutes of sitting and watching and listening as class goes on.

— I find reasons to have as many positive and joyful interactions with students as I can every day, in and out of the classroom. The five minutes in between classes is my time, and it’s amazing how many hugs and conversations you can have in that moment.

— I’m keeping up with my emails — at least my scienceleadership account. (Practical Theory is another matter….) I find that when my inbox becomes my to-do list, I get down because I feel overwhelmed. Filing emails, writing quick responses and then keeping a separate and accurate to-do list makes me feel that much more on-top of my game.

— I’m doing a better job of asking people to step out of my office when I absolutely must do the drudge work. I don’t like to close my door, and I still don’t do it, but I’m getting better at not small-talking for extending periods of time whenever folks just want to chat. It’s hard, because I believe that the relationships are so much a part of the job, but I had to remember that sometimes, there are things I just have to crank out, like it or not.

So what have I learned… well, I know that I have to find different kinds of joy as principal than the ones that I had as a teacher — not a major revelation, but still… and through that, I realize that I do love being principal of SLA. Again, perhaps not a shock, but hey, we’re all entitled to our angst. And I’ve learned that I have to write. I won’t lie and say that I don’t care if I have an audience. I love getting comments as much as the next person, but this blog has to be, in the end, my public reflective journal. I need it. Even the act of sitting down, ribe tuckus, tonight with the TV off and the email beep off, made me think of five or six other entries that I have to write. I’m not out of ideas, I’m just tired. And I can write when I’m tired. In fact, it’s all the more important that I do, I think.

Anyway, so now, Dan… can you stop calling me an ex-blogger now?

I have a plea for everyone involved in education — especially those folks who have specialized jobs in districts:

Speak English.

I never want to learn the difference between an RBS and and H20… or an E-195 or a E-204. My brain shuts down when I hear all those terms, and I can’t keep them all straight.

I know that folks in central offices deal with questions about the same 10 things all day long, and I understand that if it were me, I’d create shortcut language too, but when you have to deal with the folks in the field who deal with every form, every policy, every person, please speak English.

I promise, if you do, I won’t sit in meetings with that really confused look on my face.