Kindness in Communication

This week I’ve had some cause to think about kindness in communication.  I’m always talking about how incredibly busy the business of education is.  There is literally something happening at every moment during the day.  Something needs attending to around every corner.  We are each running at an extraordinary pace.  At the same time, we’re attending to the incredibly important task of being patient with our outcomes.  Learning and growth takes time.

Even in the midst of an arguably frenetic pace, educators are required to be thoughtful.  We have to be.  The required envisioning, planning, processing, implementing, critical thinking, adapting, re-envisioning, innovating, and implementing (again) cycle is dizzying.  Ironically, we seem to love it.  We thrive on the challenges we face.

One of the most important lessons I’ve been learning as a new administrator is that none of us do it alone.  I’m blessed to be working in a community where stakeholders in all positions understand that, and they take advantage of the gift of partnerships by communicating with kindness.  In fact, as I’ve been working to keep up with the tasks while keeping student achievement and wellbeing in mind, I’ve heard from a variety of partners…all willing to help, all ready to collaborate, all positive and optimistic – including our incredible students.

In the past two weeks my counterpart and I delivered the Code of Conduct talks to 1150 patience 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.  We focused on our community’s expectations as they relate to the individual and collective, short and long-term achievement of goals for our students.  We spent some time going over the rules and the consequences, and we spent some time relating to the groups that we spoke to.  We addressed concerns and celebrated successes.  We talked about being helpful, accountable, respectful, and thoughtful (H.A.R.T.’s underpinning behavioral guide).  We reminded students that they are each expected to “lead from their H.A.R.T.” at all times.

Today I was in the lunchroom wiping down a table that was left messy by a group of students who rushed off without cleaning.  It was frustrating, especially because we had just spent so much time talking about our responsibilities.  There I was, cleaning up a mess, feeling frustrated, when I was interrupted by a relatively quite…and very kind voice, leading from it’s H.A.R.T., “Mr. Berg, I can help you clean that up.”  The frustration lifted and was replaced with pride.  How cool.  The things we learn from these children, right?  The task was no longer difficult.  I no longer felt rushed.

As I finished the task and chatted about the week with this considerate young man, I thought about how important it is to remember that the challenges of our busy days can be diminished by kindness in communication.  So many people have reached out to me in kind ways over the past two weeks.  I need to follow their lead, making sure that in the mist of all of this busyness, I reach out in all directions with authenticity and with kindness.  Today, one of my students reminded me that it brings us together, makes our challenges seem less challenging, and enhances our days.

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Dream Big.  Work Hard.  Be Well.

 

 

 

 

One comment

  1. Rachel

    I love this post, and I can picture it perfectly in my mind. We have fabulous students! How fortunate they are to have a responsive leader like you! I know I took a long time to respond to this, but I found it again this morning and felt like celebrating the kindness we have in our learning community.

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