Maintaining an Attitude of Gratitude

Tuesday wasn’t just the last day of school before a really long weekend.  For me, it was the day that I would get to sit back and watch someone else do my job.  In a sense I’m having an even longer break than the rest of you because on Tuesday one of my incredible fourth graders served as principal-for-the-day!  It was a real treat.

This fine student earned the job by single-handedly generating the highest amount of donations by one student for our very successful fall Fun Run (FYI, principals and PTA boards – the prize seems to be a big motivator).  She was excited, I was excited, the other students and the teachers were excited…it was down right exciting!

We started the day off in a meeting with our PTA president in which we made some very important decisions about upcoming events, we did several classroom visits, we ate lunch in the staff lounge, and we rounded things off with some guest-reading appearances in our kindergarten and first grade classrooms.  It was a busy and productive day.  All told we spent time in more than ten classrooms.  It was cool.

Our principal-for-the day represented herself and our school community extremely well.  I was proud…and then, as I watched her write thank-you notes to the teachers and students that she visited, I was prouder…I might have even been prouder-er (and that’s really proud).

You see, over the course of my time as an educational leader I learned that there are multiple benefits to targeted communication that highlights best practices.  In that vein, I work hard to follow up with teachers and students as quickly after instructional interactions as possible.  I used varied methodology:

Sometimes I simply use words the next time we cross paths…i.e. “That was a great presentations in Social Studies, thanks for letting me listen in!”

Sometimes I take pictures and send them digitally.  I can easily grab some shots of learning in action, highlight and celebrate some key points with a short caption, tweet them out, and then send the tweet to the teacher though e-mail with a celebratory message of gratitude for the incredible learning I experienced.

Sometime I take pictures, send them to myself through e-mail, print them out when I get back to the office, write my note on the back, and put them in teachers’ mailboxes.

Sometimes I simply write and deliver thank-you notes.  That’s what our wonderful principal for the day chose to do (she wrote one for every single group she visited).

One Example

With each note that she wrote I realized something very important…she was truly grateful!  It’s not that I’m not grateful, it’s just that in the busy world of education it’s easy to get wrapped up in waves of energy.  It’s easy to slide through any given period of time on those waves, just focused on maintaining balance as we’re tossed about.

This genuinely grateful student reminded me that taking the time to seriously focus on the joys of it all is among the most important things that we can do for ourselves and for each other.  Once again, a kid taught me!  And guess what?  I’m grateful for it!  Go figure.

I have so much to be grateful for every day.  Here’s to a Thanksgiving filled with peace and gratitude for all!

Live. Learn. Lead.

 

Dream Big. Work Hard. Be Well.