I have often heard the saying, “if we can impact one child, then we will have made a difference.” So what happens when one school impacts another? How big of a difference is that? Here is an email that I received from a principal in Texas regarding what they did for their “Identity Day“.
Hello George,
Where do I begin? Before school started I was really looking for something that would help students to begin building productive relationships with one another right away. Your posts about the Identity Fair held at your school was exactly the type of activity I thought would help accomplish my overall goal of being proactive against bullying. I sent home a letter in the summer to student/parents about the event and when it would be held. The staff received a letter about the Identity Fair with their summer welcome back letter. I borrowed a lot from the information in your posts and I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to capture in writing for parents and staff the same feeling that I felt from your posts.
I’m on car rider duty every morning with the staff. On Friday I watched as students got out of their cars with their displays. By that time I had already seen staff members with theirs and listened as they talked about hiding it until the “big reveal.” My assistant principal, leadership team, and office staff used one of the display cases for our creations. Later that day the classes rotated within the grade level areas allowing students to move from one classroom to another. In each room the students were able to see a display showing the “one” thing they were passionate about. They were also able to see the teacher’s work as well. It was very exciting. As I’m sure you can already imagine, the students loved sharing something about themselves and were excited to see what was special about others. They also found it hard to believe that a “principal from Canada” knew about what they were doing and couldn’t wait to see pictures!
There were two moments that really tugged on my heart with the latter bringing me to tears. One student’s display was about their father who was away in Iraq. The student’s father was due to come home soon. It was beautiful and it really let you know just how much our students deal with outside of the classroom that doesn’t really stay outside. The second moment came from an unexpected place. I was sitting in my office and I could hear music that didn’t sound like what we normally hear coming from the music room. It intrigued me even more so because my music teacher was absent that day just as she had been half of the day before. I went to the music room. When I entered I saw the substitute standing at the front of the classroom playing his saxophone. The students sat mesmerized by what they were hearing and seeing. This teacher is a familiar and frequent substitute at our school. He is about 63 years old and believes in education. When he learned we were sharing the one thing we were passionate about, he came the next day with his passion, the saxophone. It brought me to tears.
I cannot say thank you enough! I know you always give your assistant principal credit for implementing the idea at your school so please pass on my thanks to her as well. Because of your posts and tweets, I’ve tried things that I never knew existed. I’m out of my comfort zone technologically speaking (and loving it) but, I’ve managed to already show my staff that I’m learning and we all need to keep learning in order to keep up with our students.
Simply – Thank you.
This email brought me to tears last night. I was already so proud of what our school community did with our Identity Fair and now to see that they are impacting others is amazing. How powerful will this be when I share with students? They will know they are making a difference.
The great thing about this email is that all I did was share the information. Our school led the initiative and I took part as a participant and wrote about it. How many things have you done in your school do you think could impact other schools? Are you writing about them? Everyday that I read and learn about what other schools are doing, the more I am convinced that we cannot let our best practices live in isolation anymore.
We need to share the achievements of our school so that we can work together as an educational community to make widespread change.
It is interesting that I received this email the same night I went out with Will Richardson for dinner. The last time we met, he and my brother convinced me that I need to get more involved using social media. It has now seem to come full circle.
I am so proud of what my school did that day. I am even more proud that their enthusiasm and passion is spreading to others around the world.
