#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.