The OneThing That Makes All Teachers Think About Quitting.

Head-in-Hands

My esteemed colleagues, Please read. It's shorter than the facebook or text message you get from your ex. ;) I absolutely love the summer. It is my favorite time because I’m finally not teaching, I’m learning. Each summer, I spend countless hours learning something new, or refining my skills. I used to go to clinics, conducting schools, and workshops, but now I’m doing the more cost effective thing - I spend hours practicing something within reach. Right now it is guitar!

Summer is also a scary time. Summer is a time for reflection. Although I rarely reflect on the good of the year. I mean, I think about how far the kids came, but I have this movie of my worst moments running through my head. Some moments from this past school year and some from years ago. To be honest, some years haunt me. Not really any from actually teaching, but from dealing with certain administrators and difficult parents. With students, I have no problem letting go. I know how much I, myself, changed between high school and now. In some cases they are more mature than their parents. But the words from the grown-ups, those bother me. Can you relate?

Shedding difficult professional moments was easier when I was dating or engaged but now that I’ve been single for a while, stuff really sticks in me like a sliver that hurts, but it’s below the skin and I can’t get it out.

I reflect on changes I made throughout the year. Former CEO of GE Electric, Jack Welch said, “Some people say that you should go with slow, gradual change, and I felt like I didn’t change things fast enough.” Honestly, that’s how I feel too! I mean, yes, you choose your battles and for what would you fall on the sword for, but let me give you an illustration to find out what kind of leader you are: You are walking with a group of people. You ask where they are going and they tell you and it’s a place you’ve actually been to before. You know the route like the back of your hand but it’s in the entirely wrong direction and quite a long walk. The people at the front of the line think they are sure they are going the right way. Each step they take makes the step to where they want to go farther away. You tell the leaders you’ve been there multiple times and they simply roll their eyes and keep walking. How hard do you try to get the group on the right path? Or do you simply walk with them until the obnoxious ones die off and then turn the group back in the right direction?

Stay with me on this! In the concentration camps of the Holocaust, they used to have the prisoners carry heavy rocks from one end to the other and after they moved the entire pile, they had to move it back. It was one of the cruelest tortures used. Why? Because it was pointless and they knew it.

I would do everything I could to get the group in the illustration turned around in the right direction. I’m going to try to do the right thing, in my opinion, and if the group follows me, we all win. I don't want credit, I just want them to succeed. If they resist and kill me off, so be it. But there’s a word for that whole process of getting people over to your side - Politics.

If there’s anything I hate most, that has given me the most headaches, has been politics in teaching. It goes against everything I stand for. Here’s my ten, "Here I Am" statements: 1. I say what I do and do what I say.

2. I am going to give you the truth, and I expect you to do the same.

3. I don’t have an agenda. If I did, I would tell you, but I don’t. If you have an agenda, tell me, or you let secrets become the cracks that brings down our relationship.

4. I joke around and you may wonder if I’m ever serious, but I promise you, when I am serious, you will know it. 5. I would never say anything about you to someone else that I wouldn’t say directly to your face. 6. I Expect a LOT out of leaders and when they disappoint, they only lose my confidence when they cover it up or won’t own their mistake.

7. If you feel like I betrayed you or wronged you, don’t hide. Come to me. If I feel that way, I will not hide, I will come to you.

8. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I would hope you do the same with me. Whatever I do, it is with pure intentions.

9. Just because I have horrible parents doesn’t mean they have a horrible son.

10. I may not do what my principal would do, but almost always I WILL TRY to do what Jesus would.

Thank you for reading! Now I want to learn from you! It’s the summer. What do you reflect on? What are your 10 "Here I Am" Statements?