The Rebel Yell

I really wanted my first posting to be something mind blowing, earth shattering, emotionally moving, or at the very least insightful.  However, I finally realized I have nothing even remotely close to moving, insightful, or mind blowing.  As my wife would say, “Your such a guy.”  She often sees me sitting in my favorite t.v. watching chair with a serious look of deep contemplation on my face and will ask me, “Whatcha thinking about?”  Oh how I would love to tell her I was thinking about world peace, global warming, Marzano’s Nine, or even how much money Phillip Schlechty is hauling in per year.  However, I just have to look up at her and say, “Nothing”.  Sure, I could tell her the truth, about how I was really thinking things like, “I wonder how many pretzels I could get in my nose?” or “It sure would be cool to have a pet pig” or “Dang that cat just licked his own rear, that can’t taste good”.  Women don’t understand thoughts like these-its a guy thing.

However, there has been one thing on my mind this week that might have at least a little morsel of deep thought.  Recently our school district interviewed four of my co-workers for a high school principal position.  Each of these four people are truly amazing in different ways.  The first one is the most child centered woman I have ever worked with and could probably motivate a snail to win Olympic gold in the 100 meter dash. The second one is a middle school principal who has a wealth of knowledge and treats his staff like gold. The third is an elementary principal who is without a doubt a master of creating a positive work culture and has a great reputation as a leader. The fourth one, who actually got the job, has a way of inspiring confidence in those around him and is no doubt going to do a wonderful job.  All four of these people would have done a great job and all four are very deserving.  It was a can’t miss situation for the hiring committee.  However, that can be the bad thing about some decisions, someone is not going to get what they deserve.  Our profession is no different than others in the fact that there is a group of us that work hard, serve others, and do what is asked of us.  In turn we expect to get what we feel we deserve.  I hope these friends of mine get what they deserve this next school year.  They deserve something far more that the title of “Principal”.  They deserve to see the kids on their campuses be successful because of the hard work these four put in.  They deserve to watch that one teacher they have been mentoring finally turn the corner to become a master of the trade.  They deserve to sit across the desk from a parent who is worried about their child’s future and then watch that parent’s face as they show them a report card full of A’s. In short, these four deserve to be reminded each and every day (often it is in the small things that we have forgotten to appreciate) that they are educators that have and will continue to make a difference.

One of these days each one of us will find ourselves in front of those pearly gates in heaven and will have to answer the question, “Why do you deserve to enter my kingdom?”  We will think back about everything we have done in our lives. Has the good really outweighed the bad?  Was God watching when I was in 8th grade science during 6th period?    Can he read my thoughts?  (If so I am sure he is not impressed with the cat rear thing!!) As we stand there waiting for God’s answer we begin to realize that in the in end the sins of humanity are just to0 vast for us to enter into heaven on our own accord. Do we really want we deserve in this case?  As the gates of heaven open up for us to enter we realize that we just received a gift we did not deserve.  We don’t always get what we deserve and sometimes that’s a good thing!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 7:44 am Filed under Education and. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.