The Best Days of Our Lives

I was three days into my Christmas break. After four months of running a school during a global pandemic – months where mask use, hand washing and social distancing overshadowed any semblance of “instructional leadership,” I, like all of my colleagues, was exhausted.

My friends (I’ll call them Louise and Jim) are one of those couples that have it together enough to to send out an “annual Christmas letter” where they reflect on events from the last year.

Despite a promise to myself not to think about school over the holidays, I was struck by a section of Louise’s letter where she reflected on her daughter’s final year of high school which was cut short due to COVID-19. Instead of her daughter feeling cheated out of her graduation or feeling as though she were short changed and dealt an unfair hand, I was met with the following sentence: “Audrey completed high school in 2020 and I would personally like to thank covid for bringing this chapter of her life to an early conclusion.”

Ouch.

As educators, we often tell students, “these are the best days of your life.” I’m guilty of using the same tired line in uninspired moments, as I search for ways to convince students that they should be making the most of their time in school.

Audrey completed high school in 2020 and I would personally like to thank covid for bringing this chapter of her life to an early conclusion.

There is a hard lesson here. For some of our students, these might be the best days of their lives, though I suspect these students are the minority. For most students, what we are offering them on a daily basis may be so irrelevant, so outdated, and so excruciatingly mind numbing that a global pandemic can actually provide a sense of relief.

For many of our students, finishing high school marks the end of what they consider to be a dark chapter of their lives. Sadly, this sentiment is echoed by far too many parents, like Louise, who see school not only as something that brings misery to their kids, but also as an experience that pits them against their own children and as a major source of family stress.

I have heard too many conversations in staff rooms hinting that the “good students” get what they need from school, while the other students – those who misbehave, those who do not complete work, and sadly, those who rarely attend – merely need to try harder. I used to subscribe to this line of thinking myself. I was wrong.

Many of our students who are showing up everyday and doing all of the things we expect of them may also be having underwhelming experiences while at school. Audrey is a student who is creative, smart, artistic, confident, curious – she has a great personality and she has all of the natural skills you would select for if you wanted to create an ideal student. If Audrey cannot find the value of school, I can only imagine how other less equipped students are struggling on a daily basis.

We can provide a better product than this. It is necessary that we do.

If we were providing a meaningful and relevant experience for students, they wouldn’t reach the finish line of their high school careers with a sense of relief and a chorus of “no more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks” ringing in their ears.

I had planned to start this blog long before I read Louise’s letter; however, Louise’s words get to the heart of why this blog exists.

After 20 years of working in education as a classroom teacher, department head, vice principal and now principal – I’ve got a lot of thoughts on what is working, what is not working, and what can be improved in our current educational system. I’ll be sharing some of those thoughts on this site in the coming months.

Admittedly, I have far more questions than answers. Nonetheless, I plan to throw these half-baked ideas and meanderings into the world, so that they can encourage dialogue and come back to me, either more fully formed or fully exposed as nonsense. I expect this experience to challenge my thinking on education and I hope these thoughts challenge your thinking as well.

I’m optimistic, that as Audrey leaves high school, knowing that her best days are ahead of her, the best days for education also lie in our not too distant future.