cc licensed flickr photo shared by Pink Sherbet Photography
I was very proud of our school division today as they connected with all stakeholders to get their thoughts on our vision and direction for technology integration in our schools. It was very impressive to hear the voices of students, parents, business leaders, and educators all talk about the future of our school division. It was a fantastic day and I appreciate the openness of our schools.
I took notes so I could write about it tonight but I decided to talk about something else.
As September is an extremely busy month with budgets, meetings, visioning, school reports, and so on, I will admit that I have been fairly stressed. With a loss recently in my life, it admittedly has been hard to focus.
Sitting at my desk, finishing a report, one of my fantastic teachers popped by my office and asked if a student could hang out with me and continue on her art project as she had felt sick. My staff has known I have been a little down in the dumps, so it was as if this teacher knew she was really doing something for me and not necessarily the child. The grade two student sat at the table in my office, and coloured her assignment that she was working on. I sat there and looked from my desk, stopped what I was doing, and got up.
I sat down beside her, took one of her pages, and asked her, “Do you mind if I colour with you?”. She smiled, looked at me and said “Of course.” I asked her to choose whatever colour she would like, and in that instant, I just forgot about all of the things we have to do as administrators, and just coloured.
We sat and listened to music. We coloured. We both felt better instantly.
Knowing that the student would want to go back when she felt okay, I asked her if she was ready to go and join the class. She looked at me and said, “No. I just want to hang out with you.” I was kind of hoping she would say that. She made my day.
With all of the things that we try to do as educators, and all of the stress that comes with the day-to-day managerial duties of an administrator, it is these moments with students that make me work harder. It is these moments that continuously push me to do what is best for our kids.
The most important thing that we could ever teach our students is to take care of one another. Sometimes they show us they have learned that when they take care of us.
Simple.
