FOR vs. AGAINST. I'll come back to that in a little bit.
Waterloo Schools is a Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports district. This has been a very powerful paradigm shift that we as a school district implemented to improve how we handle behaviors and students. It has many layers and moving parts, but the basic idea is that reinforcing and praising positive actions is a much better way to teach than to constantly harp on all the wrong things people do. Working in a school with hundreds of children, it can be easy to become negative and focus on mistakes that are made. With PBIS, it becomes much more about reinforcing the appropriate behaviors and creating a positive climate in how people interact.
I like that paragraph……sounds like it came out of brochure. However, concise is much better. So what about this: FOR vs. AGAINST. We spend way too much of our life focused on the negative and what we are AGAINST. At school, we are against poor attitudes, we are against bad grades, we are against being tardy, we are against being disrespectful etc. etc. etc. And if you spend enough time in a school, you are going to find kids that get bad grades, are tardy, can be disrespectful, or are even in situations where somebody has a poor attitude (this RARELY happens at a middle school-a little sarcasm here). And if you spend your entire life focused on what you're against and how many people are doing it, your existence is sad and cold. However, why don't we focus more on what we are "FOR"? I know at Hoover we are "FOR" many great things; influencing the world, serving others, saving lives, culture of excellence, kindness and respect, working hard, showing up on time, and doing the right thing when nobody is watching (this list can go on forever). I found in my life when I focus on this and encouraging these values we lead by example for others to follow. Don't get me wrong, we still deal with the negative, and the "AGAINST", but at the end of the day, I want the majority of my path in life focused on the positive and "FOR". What this boils down to is a big question that I try to answer each afternoon; what stories do I take home with me at night?
Two stories, but the same day. It was tardy day when the reports come in and I have to talk with all the students that have at least 5 or more tardies to first period. We have made dramatic improvements in our on-time attendance, but I still had 6 students I had to chat with that morning and make contact to parents. While I tried to focus on the improvement and decrease in our overall tardies from last year, I still couldn't shake my bad mood on the 6 negative phone calls and contacts I had to make that morning. While I tried to be positive and encourage the students to be on-time ("FOR"), I was still dogged with the "AGAINST" that kept ruining my mood.
Later that day, a teacher comes up to me during lunch duty. She tells me that a student had come to school that day with a a fleece jacket and leggings. When she asked where her winter clothes were, the teacher found out this was the warmest clothes the student owned. The temperature for her walk home was going to be around 0. The teacher asks me what we can do. A few phone calls later and the teacher is with the little girl at Target. The little girl walks out of the store with a new heavy winter jacket, gloves, hat, and boots. The grateful smile on her face says everything that needs to be said. Our only requests to the little girl? Go forth and influence the world and serve others.
Are there tardies at Hoover Middle School? Yes. But for every tardy I deal with (or negative thing for that matter), there are ten stories of amazing happenings that our students and staff are doing every day. The teacher in the last story? These are the types of behaviors I see her do everyday along with 100 of her colleagues at Hoover that see their roles as a calling rather than a job.
Bottom line, we need to figure out what stories we are taking home with us at night. Stories that remind us of what we are AGAINST? Or about what we are FOR?
"Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
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