“Never pray for patience.” How many times have you heard this? There have been a few experiences to make me a believer in this statement.
As a school leader how in the world are you supposed to have patience and wait when the stakes are so high?
No Child Left Behind – All students in the United States will be proficient in everything! Ok not EVERYTHING. But as a school leader somewhere inside you think the “proficiency police” are going to come arrest you and all your staff before Dec. 31, 2014.
Kindergarten – The first 2-4 weeks of a school year you and your kindergarten teachers have no idea how you are going to survive the year. Crying, pushing, shoving, taking all their clothes off to go to the bathroom, peeing on the playground, puking, and the list goes on and on and on. Kindergarten parents need extra love and attention too. Many of our K students will be with us 4 – 5 more years. How you handle inappropriate “show and tell” on the playground can effect a relationship for years. But we survive with patience.
New teachers – So excited! They can do anything! Classroom ready. Organized. Everything color coded. Then the students arrive. They are excited! But some don’t have school supplies. Some are hungry. Some are tired. Mom and dad just split up. You know the list. It goes on and on. College didn’t prepare the new teacher for this. But they survive with patience.
The Principal – There are days I want to pray for patience. The stomach flu that took out half the primary students has now taken out 3 teachers. Students get on the wrong bus. There is a fox on the playground. The internet goes down during lunch. Student brings a hand grenade for show and tell. (Yes, the bomb squad came and blew it up.)
Sometimes we just to go through things, get to the other side, reflect and plan for next time.
Patience!
