Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea

Message from the Lead Dog Principal #8

One problem with education today.

There are many problems with education today. There are too many to list here. Yesterday, I was looking at my Facebook feed when something jumped out at me. (It is important to let you know that I have a very limited and select friend list. I know everyone, most of them fairly well.)

For your frame of reference, New Jersey requires 180 school days for children. Most districts contractually require maybe 185 days for staff.

The post that really irritated me read, “One down 183 to go!” Of course, there was a cute graphic to go with this. This post angered me. I know this person well and I wanted to fire the person on the spot. This post was from a middle-aged teacher, probably looking at 25 more years to go. Is it that bad for this individual? If it is, I wish this person would either find another district or get the hell out of the field.

This attitude trickles down to the kids. This attitude embeds itself in the school’s culture. Do not kid yourself. Counting the days to the end becomes the norm, not the joke that it may have started out as.

I worked with a gentleman for many years and others anointed him as the resident day counter. When people encountered him in the morning, they would not even say good morning. He was also in charge of the bulletin board countdown. People would greet this guy everyday saying, “Pat, how many left?” He would happily tell them, only saying the number left. This occurred daily. Whether it was day 1 or day 182, it did not matter. This is nothing more than a sad indictment of the mindset of the staff. A sad indictment of the culture of the school.

Teaching is a remarkable profession. I would constantly remind everyone that being a teacher allowed you every year to start over. Every year, just like in golf, you would get that “Mulligan.” You can wipe the slate clean. The outstanding teachers would reflect on the previous year and work to correct any weakness and build on any success. The rest would just count the days.

I can remember going through training camp playing college football. We would consistently remind one another to “make the days count, don’t count the days.”

Today, I implore every educator to do the same. Make every day count. It matters. You matter. Do not empower the school’s day counter. Empower each other to do better today than you did yesterday. Adopting this notion is one of the first steps to improving education. Take that step!