Adults are a whole different story. Whether it is a weekly meeting with our teaching staff or an overflowing gym of parents at Back to School night, there's just something about speaking in front of adults that puts my nerves on high alert. I'm told that it's not noticeable and everything presents relatively normal during these speeches. Inside, however, I'm second guessing every word, worried I'm not connecting with everyone in the audience, and often will veer off-script with some silly humor that doesn't always hit the mark.
Given the struggles I regularly experience with speaking in front of adults, I find it interesting how much I enjoy sharing my admin story with other administrators at various conferences and professional development opportunities. My best guess is that I truly love the opportunity of being able to share my "admin story" with other administrators and educators.
Being an administrator is in itself a rather lonely job. Sure, you're surrounded by a thousand students, two thousand parents, a staff of a hundred hard-working adults, and other student-focused administrators at other school sites and district office. But day to day, you make decisions separately in your silo, always trying to prevent the spinning plates from falling. Each of your decisions, no matter how innocuous, gets second guessed, sometimes by an upset staff member, an irrational member of the parent community, or a supervisor at the district office. I'm blessed to have an incredibly talented staff, a very positive and kind parent community, and an extremely support district office (note: this trifecta is very rare). Still, it doesn't make a principal's day any easier: That's one fo the reasons why sharing my "admin story" with other administrators is something I look forward to.
This Fall, I presented at two conferences: CUE Admin RockStar and Fall CUE (don't say these two words too fast...). I've blogged about my initial CUE Admin RockStar experience and was pleasantly surprised to be invited back. The CUE Admin RockStar conference is for current and future school administrators. Held in Truckee in late September, I presented on Mobile Leadership and Blogging over the two days for a total of five presentations. Two days of nonstop talking. Heads nodding. Lots of thank you's. Tons of DMs thereafter of future connecting and support. It helps bring our principal worlds a little closer together when we realize that the situations we educators face are more alike than different.
The second conference, Fall CUE, was another session on my admin story, titled "Building a Better Admin: Lead by Example." Here, I shared tons of tidbits on how I support my admin life to allow for increased parent communication with our school, how the importance of relationships can drive a student's school experience, and, of course, my secrets with Google Forms, Docs, Sheets, and Sites to streamline a principal's workflow. During the presentation, I will often share topical "war stories" with the admin community in the room, whether it's a silly student story, an out-of-control parent from my last district, or just some personal notes of what it's like to have four kids. This experience doesn't feel like a presentation as much as the congregation of admins coming together to smile, learn, and exhale.
Truthfully, there's another reason I enjoy presenting at conferences: It's a compliment to be chosen. It means that someone in the edu-world values what I have to say and think it could be valuable for others. Principals don't get a lot of positive feedback; being chosen to present says we're on the right admin track.
And I'm always surprised when my sessions get selected. I don't feel like I have the secret ingredients of what it takes to be a successful principal. I'm not even sure some days, despite the positive feedback I receive from parents and fellow district educators, that I'm doing a good job. Most of the time, I'm just doing what I feel is best for our students and providing our staff whatever they need to be successful. A lot of the work that a principal does to support their school goes unnoticed. It's just part of the job.
Prior to the CUE Admin RockStar event, I was asked by the organizer to provide a morning keynote. It was suggested that I share the same keynote as the previous RockStar event where I spoke about flipping our typical Back to School night into something a bit different. This would have been the easier option. I didn't take it.
Instead, I shared my real "Admin Story" with the fellow conference-attending administrators who had given up their weekend to improve their practice. My keynote centered around my Molly and what it's like to have a child with special needs. I talked about how important it is as an administrator to support all students, especially those with special needs. I shared my thoughts on the importance of hiring nice staff members, how my wife and I do not often feel that we're not doing that great job as parents, and the likelihood that the parents of special needs students at your school are probably feeling defeated by the limited opportunities and supports their child's school provides. I discussed that one meeting where, at age 4, the school psychologist wanted to label our daughters as intellectually disabled.
Somewhere along the way, despite how much I enjoy these admin talks, I lost the ability to speak. I rolled through a few of the slides, all pictures of my Molly. Her smile. Her first steps. Her silly dancing in front of a mirror.I managed to close the keynote shortly thereafter, tying in an earlier thread to my daughters' plight. A fellow presenter at the conference gave me an instant hug and then publicly praised my ability to share my story.
And I think that's the job of a school administrator: pulling down your walls and sharing your story. Be upfront and honest about who you are and what you're struggling with. Our parent communities don't expect us to be perfect; they just want us to care. Sharing your story as a school administrator can help bridge these relationships toward the common goal of working together for what's best for your students. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy, especially for those administrators like myself who just don't like speaking in front of adults. But as I tell our students, the right thing to do and the hard thing to do are often the same thing to do.
Share your story.
