Love Your Work....but.....Embrace Your Life

• I have a rash. it’s nasty and red, and sore and most of all it’s itchy. All the time. I’ve been ignoring it for over a week.
• It’s March 19 today. I’ve just had a haircut. I postponed it on January 20 and it’s taken me that long to go back.
• I washed my sheets and hung them outside for the first time in six weeks today. (Please no-one show my mother this blog.)
• Yesterday I went to watch a group of young people from school perform at 10am. By 12 noon I was home in bed. Apart from a couple of 20 minute interludes on Facebook or on my emails I basically slept for 8 hours, then got up for an hour and then went back to bed and slept the night through.

When I did wake up for an hour yesterday evening I read this posting from Lesley Murrihy.  Because I know Lesley well, and one of her AP’s very well- the general topic of the blog wasn’t news to me, and I’ve always loved reading what Lesley writes.  But this time there were some very strong messages that really hit home to me.

One paragraph in particular I’ve re-read over and over again.

As a baby boomer and part of the second wave feminist movement, I grew up understanding “sacrifice”; and I have worked increasingly hard in support of equitable outcomes for all students - not sacrificing my family for the cause, but sacrificing my own needs and desires and my health and wellbeing. There have been many, many others like me. 

I am part of a team that opened a new school six weeks ago. We were hoping there might be 500-600 students. There are over 900. Our staff are working harder and in more challenging ways with more complex students than any of us ever imagined. 

My time is stretched between supporting staff, and building relationships with students and their whānau- supporting them all as they adapt to new environs, pedagogies and people.

There’s always a lot of things waiting on the wunderlist (my on-line to do list) to be checked off, many of them urgent. Those that aren’t urgent are very often even more important than the ones on the urgent list.

A number of people have gently suggested I look exhausted over the last couple of weeks. I’ve kind of blown them off… said “yep, I’m a bit tired…”….. and kept going. But after a week of a nasty rash that I have 99.5% eliminated being anything but stress, and realising I had to spend an extra 8 hours of a day on the weekend just sleeping I need to acknowledge Lesley’s words.  I am sacrificing my own need and desires and my health and wellbeing. And as  a senior leader that is not something I want to do- either for my own health and wellbeing, or as an example for other staff of what we might expect them to be or do.

I’m in the fortunate position of having been here before- as far as stating up a new school. I know we’re in it for the long haul and that the energy required na the complexities we will need to work through are going to be like this for a couple of years- It’s not going to magically sort itself in another 4 weeks or even in another term. 

And I swore to myself two months ago I would not do this to myself again this time around, yet here we are six weeks in and I’m already doing it.

Sacrificing ourselves for others is somehow somewhere seen as noble by many woman of my generation. Others may call it martyrdom. I need to remember this. I am not being noble. I am closer to martyrdom and that is not going to help anyone. 

I need tor remember my oneword goal for the year-embrace.  An act of accepting something willingly or enthusiastically.  And that was all about embracing life, embracing opportunities. But i’ve buried myself so deep in the day to day work that I wouldn’t at the moment recognise opportunities if they did come along. Not an example I want to set, or a way I want to live.

I want to still be there front and centre in two years time, in three years time- supporting and helping, challenging and growing- both myself and others. I don’t want to have burnt out, or be tired and bitter. I don’t want to spend two years covered in an itchy rash or sleeping the entire weekend just to get through another week. I want to support others, and actually I want to inspire others, and thats not going to be achieved through sacrificing myself. Its going to be achieved by looking after myself. And I need to make sure thats the message others I work alongside are getting too.

And while I am working hard to support our staff, our students and our whānau in the amazing concept that will be Haeata, I also want to work nationally and internationally with people like Lesley to explore the sustainability of our teaching workforce. The sustainability of developing personalised learning that meets the needs of every learner, without buying out the life and soul of every educator. Like Lesley I am totally committed to meeting the personalised needs of each learner we work wiht. But I completely agree with her that we need to find some different ways of resourcing this than the traditional ways we have resourced schools if we are to be sustainably successful. Our younger generations will not, neither should they, embrace the notions of sacrifice some of us have spent much of our lives basing our actions around.

For the record I’ve spent the afternoon embracing life.

• I’ve bought a nice roast to cook-something I don't often do living alone. And some ingredients to make a tasty salad. With the increased bonus that I can sue this to make lunches for the next couple of days. I’ve prepared breakfasts to take wth me so I am providing my body with healthy nutrients rather than pretending to myself I don’t have time to bother with eating.
• I’ve been for a walk on the beach I live 200 metres from and haven’t seen in a fortnight.
• I’ve sat and practised mindfulness quietly for 15 minutes and then put on some music and tidied up the house so it feels nicer to come home to.

I’ll still be at work at 6am tomorrow, but I’ll be there more refreshed. And ultimately of more use to people. And if some things that I wanted done are not done- is that really going to be a big deal in a months time? in a years time? (to be a bit cliche.) 

I’ll have to reassess the urgent and the important priorities for tomorrow, but thats something to embrace. And I will need to figure out ways of reminding myself to do this continually without the prompting of a nasty rash, or 8 hours extra sleep, or people telling me I look horribly exhausted. 

I love my job, even through the exhaustion I absolutely love what we are doing and what we are working towards. I have no regrets. But while I love my work I am embracing my life.

What Should Schools Really Teach?

Over the last two weeks there has been a huge amount of comment and articles in the media about the concept of consent and in general about sexuality and relationship education and whether it is the job of schools or parents to teach this. In a school we often hear both sides of this argument. We hear from one group of people that they want us to leave all of this to parents and concentrate on “the curriculum.” And we hear from the group of people who think schools should teach everything and anything that goes wrong with teenagers in society is because schools haven’t done their job well enough.

I’m not sure it’s that simple. Parents are absolutely our children’s first teachers, and should continue to be this for their children even after they enter the schooling system. But the school system, by it’s very nature a social institution, can perhaps harness a part of social education more difficult for some parents to access and if the school system and the family system worked together on this- imagine what could be achieved.  In fact many of us in schools would say that teaching a dispositional curriculum- in partnership with whānau whoever possible- is the most important thing we do to prepare todays young peoples for their futures.

A leader at Haeata sent me this blogpost this morning. It’s all about relational aggression. We are seeing a lot of this at school at the moment. 

In teenage boys it tends to manifest itself in physical aggression, and a bit of a pack mentality- you offended my friend so now we are going to gather support and get you.  Normally this can be dealt with. It takes a lot of time, and preparedness to address things and move on for all parties. Restorative practice by it’s very nature is not quick or one-off but over time will pay huge dividends.

In girls the relational aggression is often more insidious. Sometimes it is physical threats and intimidation but often its more covert than this. Exclusion of people, silent treatment, “taking away” friends etc. I re-watched the movie Mean Girls last weekend. It’s not complete fiction. I see those scenes playing out in front of my eyes every day. These forms of aggression are not as easy to deal with as the physical aggression, especially when its often followed with “I was just kidding,” or other such phrases quoted in this article. To restore a relationship you need to be prepared to accept you ahem done something to damage it in the first place. You need to have some empathy for the person you ahem damaged. Sometimes this is a lot easier with physical aggression than it is with more insidious forms of relational aggression.

There are some great suggestions for helping- both parents and teacher in this article

I love the suggestions of actively teaching our young people to be upstanders, distracters and supporters. If we are being reposbive to our students current needs then teaching some of these skill will become our next ‘curriculum,” because fi they develop those skills then they will be better ready to access other parts of the curriculum.

We all have a responsibility to help our teenagers work through their issues and find better, more healthy ways of working through this aggression than the strategies they may currently have. That is the only way they will break this cycle as adults. And that is the responsibility of an entire society- school absolutely, whānau absolutely, but we also need help and support for some young people- more help than is sometimes available at schools or in homes.

I think the most important statement in the article is:

Never say, “That’s just girls”, or “boys will be boys” for that matter. We can be better than that. Or at least we can try.

Let’s work together and aim to help all our young people grow up to be the very best people they can be- not just learners, not just family members, but the very best people they can be. That's our true curriculum.