#DadsAsPrincipals - Legacy

Last summer, my friend, Hamish Brewer shared a book, Legacy, with me.

I think about that word, Legacy, each and every day. What do I want my Legacy to be? How do I want people to remember me?

My son doesn't (and my daughter won't) attend my school. We (my wife and I) entertained the idea (me maybe more than her), but the appeal of the neighborhood school was just too strong. I'm good with that. He ended-up at a school down the street from me; in a building with a principal and a staff that I highly admire. Eventually, he (as well as my daughter, who isn't school-aged (yet)) will end-up in a junior high and a high school with all of the Students that I serve at Van Allen Elementary.

His (their) friends will be the Students that I serve.

My family is my inspiration. It's what drives me to be the best possible Principal that I can be. To make them proud to say that I'm their Dad, I'm her husband, etc.

I am not a perfect Dad, just like I'm not a perfect Principal. I sometimes work too much and don't always devote enough time to my family. On the flip side, I sometimes put off work in-order to spend time with my family. There are times when I multi-task in an effort to get it all done, only to short change everything that I am doing. I sometimes get distracted and don't focus on the right things. I sometimes struggle to truly engage in the individual moment. I sometimes struggle with being present.

Despite these struggles, I'm trying. I'm aware of them, and I'm working on them. Unfortunately, it's not linear. Fortunately, #DadsAsPrincipals is a movement to help remind me of this focus.

I want to be the very best Principal for Van Allen Elementary. I want to be a positive influence and a difference maker for the kids that I serve at school. I also want to be the very best Dad for Ryne and Olivia. I want to leave a Legacy so that my kids will be proud to say that I am their Dad. That's what #DadsAsPrincipals is about for me. It's striving to be great in both roles. It's forKeeps.

#DadsAsPrincipals - A Movement

Being a Dad is hard. Being a Mom is hard. Being a Parent is hard.

Being a Principal is hard. Being a Teacher is hard. Being an Educator is hard.

Life is hard.

But life, and being all of these things is also great! In fact, I might argue that the struggle that these things entail is one of the reasons why they are so great.

This movement - #DadsAsPrincipals - isn't about celebrating Dads over Moms, or Principals over any other position.

This movement - #DadsAsPrincipals - is about creating a community of people that all have commonalities that don't only need shared, but instead need celebrated.

#DadsAsPrincipals - Work or Fun?

(In my best ESPN Films 30 for 30 narrator's voice...) "What if I told you that work is fun?"

In a recent conversation with my six-year-old son, we were talking about my trip to Philadelphia for the National Principals Conference. And he asked me, are you going there for work or fun.

Why does this have to be an either/or question? Why can't it be both? Why do some people look at me like I've got  a third eye when I tell them that I think work is fun?

I like working. I think that it is fun. And I am being 100% honest when I say that.

I feel bad for the people that don't have fun at work. We spend a lot of time at work. We spend a lot of time still at work even when we aren't physically at work. Life is too short. You've got to be passionate about what you do. You've got to love what you do. Love it or leave it.

This is especially true when it comes to working in schools.

"Adults need to have fun so children will want to grow up." - Erica Bauermeister 

Back to my experience in Philadelphia at #npc17...

My experience attending conferences is a whole lot different than what it was when I first started as an educator. No longer do you need to attend the conference to acquire the learning that is being presented (see my post re. #DadsAsPrincipals - Our Prequel). The primary purpose of the conference is to connect, and then learn from and with those connections. This is accomplished through the relationships that we build before, during, and after the conferences that we attend. And if building relationships isn't fun, then what's the point in anything?

Going to Philadelphia, it was for work. But it was also fun. A lot of fun.

This was my tribe from #npc17 - #DadsAsPrincipals
(L to R): @_AndyJacks, @tsschmidty, @Brewerhm, Me, and @Nick_Proud

The quote is from the closing key note via @kckatalyst

#DadsAsPrincipals - A Prequel

We're connected educators.

We Tweet, we Vox, we write, we talk, we blog, we share. We're not hiding our best strategies. We're not saving our best ideas. We are a communal economy. And we are better because of each other.

@PrincipalsConf (the '17 National Principals Conference) only solidified things that I already knew:

• There is power in the conversation that takes place over a meal, walking across town, etc.
• There is power in the connection.
• There is power in the relationships.
• There is power in the inspiration.

So you want to know what happened next,? At #npc17, while connected with some amazing friends and principals (my guys - @brewerhm, @_AndyJacks, @tsschmidty, and @Nick_Proud) an idea was born. Check-out the post #DadsAsPrincipals

#DadsAsPrincipals

When the content lacks meaning and/or is presented in way that doesn’t connect, learners disengage. Adults are NO different than kids.

It happened while sitting with not only four of my favorite principals, but four of my favorite people - Hamish Brewer, Todd Schmidt, Andy Jacks, and Nick Proud. Hamish simply snapped a selfie of our group. The photo was shared and a hashtag was born.

#DadsAsPrincipals

I don’t think we expected much of anything besides a little joke with the #MomsAsPrincipals group that we are connected with.

But all of a sudden, it was game-on. Next thing you know, we’d created a Voxer Group, Twitter and Instagram pages, and a flood of other ideas were born. We got a profile picture taken as the "Founding Fathers" in the "City of Brotherly Love." We put-out a challenge on Twitter for people to share a picture of them with their kids using the hashtag #DadsAsPrincipals - and tweets have been streaming in for the past several hours!

We went to lunch and met up with Danny Bauer, who we had just met for the first time earlier in the conference. After sharing our idea with Danny, we did an impromptu episode with him for his podcast, Better Leaders Better Schools, talking about being a principal, a dad, a husband, and how to ATTEMPT to balance all of those things. Check-out the podcast, which Danny told us would probably release sometime next week.

It has been an exciting afternoon. Between the Tweets, the podcast, the ideas, and in-general conversation - it has been energizing!

I don’t know what this will evolve into. I don’t think any of us know. But I do know that it is exciting to talk about these two topics that we are very passionate about and are deeply personal to us. We don’t think of ourselves as being great Dads and/or Principals. We know we are not perfect. We’re aware that we all have areas to improve upon - and we want to! Which is why it is so much FUN to talk about these topics - being a Principal and a Dad with such a great  tribe of like minded friends.

Un-Slumping Yourself is Not Easily Done

At the conclusion of the school year, I read passages of Oh, the Places You'll Go! to our graduating Sixth Grade Students. I love that book.

I also love writing. I love blogging. I love the feeling that I get after I've completed a draft and put all of my thoughts out there. I compare the feeling to that of a runner's high - that feeling that you get just after a long run when your body is producing all of the endorphins.

But I haven't blogged in a long time. I last hit Publish on May 12th, 2017. And that was simply a repost of something that I'd written previously for a different site. I haven't published an original post since April 14th, 2017.

It might sound foolish, but this has been weighing on me. I told myself get through May, get through the school year, and then start writing again in June. The school year has been over. June has passed. I haven't written much other than To Do lists. I feel as though I am in a slump.

I LOVE the parallels between sports and life. In sports, and let's use baseball for an example since it is baseball season, how do you un-slump yourself? Well, if you are in a hitting slump, you Just. Keep. Swinging.

So this is my post. Published on July 7th, 2017. The post about nothing. But it's how I will un-slump myself. It's my commitment to resume blogging about relevant topics regarding my learning and sharing. I've got ideas. I've go a list of them. I just need to write. I need to Just Do It.