If you have ever seen the most recent version of the movie True Grit with Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, you very likely remember one of the last scenes of the movie where Mattie has been bitten by a rattlesnake. Rooster has to get her back to a doctor at Bagby's Store and they are two days out from civilization and help . One of the most poignant parts is while during the ride Mattie is starting to fade and Rooster rides day and night pushing his horse to the point of exhaustion by spurring and whipping it to get it to Bagby's. It finally collapses and he has to put the poor guy down with his six shooter. He then carries Mattie on foot the rest of the way where he saves her life just in time.
An interesting scene from an entertaining movie, but you know why the scene stuck with me? Rooster and the horse. I see so many educational leaders feel the pressure of student achievement and test scores. I have to get my test scores up or I'll perish! We have to do this, and this, and this, and this, and this! Here is our 50 point flow chart that will get our test scores up tomorrow! Suddenly the staff is feeling enormous pressure to fulfill all the new initiatives and obligations that the leadership has put in place to get test scores up. There is not enough time and the staff is overworking themselves to death to keep up with the ridiculous pace. And the kicker? The loss of the focus on learning. And while our staffs don't meet the same end as the horse in True Grit, the same result occurs; our overworked and stressed staff leave the teaching profession. Kids, (Mattie) suffer from the misguided approach by the principal (Rooster) and the poor horse (teachers) try to keep up.
Which leads me to another story to hone in on my point. When I was a teacher, each year my high school band participated in the Southcentral Iowa Bandmasters Association concert festival in Des Moines. This was where the finest Des Moines area 4A and 3A bands participated in a judged exhibition. While we didn't directly compete, we were definitely compared to each other. My little 2A band (one of the only 2A groups to attend) from West Marshall would go down there each year and go toe to toe with the big boys. While we didn't have the talent of these bands and we weren't playing the repertoire they were, we prepared hard and we did our best to earn our spot on the stage. At first, this was a nerve-wracking event for me. I knew that we had to do our best and I was so worried about proving to everyone we deserved to be on that stage just as much as the biggest suburban schools in the state. As you can imagine, I worked our kids hard! The weeks leading up to the competition were very scripted and intense rehearsals using every best practice method in the book to coach these kids to the highest level. I yelled, threw things, and carried on like a typical college football coach. Those first couple of years I worked the horse, I mean band, to death. By performance day we always lacked that polish. In fact, half the time, the kids were too exhausted to even enjoy the experience of performing at a prestigious festival. But somewhere along the line I became smarter. The last few years we would still work very hard but I always treated the kids with kindness and respect and kept in mind how much they were capable of handling. I took in consideration the emotional health of the group as much as the "to-do" list when planning my rehearsals. And oddly enough, on about Thursday or Friday, we would take a day off of rehearsal.........and play dodgeball. "What the heck are you doing?" was always the email my friend and fellow band director Matt would send me when he found out. He would remind me, "I don't know too many bands that go out and win championships by playing dodgeball!" Yet something remarkable happened; our band became tighter as a group and more mobile as performers. They walked onto that pressure packed stage with more confidence as a family and more relaxed as musicians. We started accomplishing more and performing to our potential. Instead of worrying about the "winning" or "impressing" we focused on our core values as a family and serving each other. We started achieving so much more because the horse was healthier.
There is much at stake here and I'm not saying that dodgeball, flowers, and rah rah speeches is the answer. I'm not saying that we need to stop growing and pushing ourselves to new limits as a teaching profession. We have truly come so far in terms of amazing instructional practices and discovering what is best for kids. This is serious business because kids' lives are at stake. What I am trying to impress upon you is that we have to start taking responsibility for the cultural health of our schools. I see too many amazing teachers who are making incredible learning happen each day that are just too darn tired to keep on keeping on. We can definitely push our teachers and schools the way that Rooster pushed his horse. But you'll only do it once. What if we could push our schools and teachers in a way that we get results AND keep everybody healthy? What if we worked using best practice instruction to become more effective AND efficient? When was the last time we gave our teachers the gift of time? What if we could ride our horse to Bagby's store time and time again?
"The single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health. Yet it is ignored by most leaders even though it is simple, free, and available to anyone who wants it." - Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage
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