This is part of a "blog exchange" program of dozens of educators around the country through the month of November. I will be posting many other posts with the theme of gratitude from guest authors on a special GUEST BLOGGERS PAGE, and highly encourage you to go read their work and check them out! I have failed to live up to my marriage vows.
Wow, that's heavy, but I'm pretty sure you're supposed to hook the reader in the intro of your writing, so I'm going to stand by that opening statement and you'll see what I mean in a bit. In the meantime, I want you to think back on something... What did you TRULY know about the personal lives of any teachers you had in school? It has occurred to me that students only know what a teacher shares with them, and that varies greatly based on the individual teacher. I felt like I knew Paul Stellpflug pretty well in high school because he wasn't afraid to let us know his political leanings, the journey of buying a house, thinking UW-Oshkosh was "Harvard on the Fox", and stories from his own high school days at Kettle Moraine. I remember the infamous "Ledger", a person that earned his nickname based on where he put... stuff... in the bathrooms of Kettle Moraine High School when I was in pre-school. The only reason I know about "Ledger" is because Mr. Stellpflug told us about him. So what do my kids know about me? Probably the basics, like my favorite sports teams, my general age (although they like to joke that they think I'm in my 40s...) and basic family info. But do you know what I realized? They don't know enough about Mrs. Honish. They don't know enough about Mrs. Honish because NOBODY knows enough about Mrs. Honish. And Nobody knows enough about Mrs. Honish because I really suck at telling people about how awesome Mrs. Honish is. I already posted a gratitude-themed blog for the month of November, but I kept it professional because it was for a blog exchange among educators and I figured the audience would relate to a piece on administration. For those of you that read that post already... too bad, you're getting another one. You're getting another one because what I'm TRULY most grateful for in my entire life is Mrs. Honish, and I have failed to share it and continue to take her awesomeness for granted... which I promised I would not do on October 29, 2011 in my marriage vows to her. So what have I taken for granted in the last 7 years? -She is a multitasker. She is a realtor, which means during the school year I rush out the door and I'm gone for the day while she does the full-time job of realty and the full-time job of parent. I might make a breakfast plate for my kids before I go, but she takes charge of shower time, backpacks, lunches, school transportation in both directions, scheduling of various appointments and school functions, and endless tears, tantrums and general little kid nonsense and shenanigans. I don't have to deal with these things every day because I am gone. She does it every single day, and for that reason it became normal and I overlooked it. The truth is, I appreciate it and I should be showing it more. -She has vision. She can see things that can exist where they currently do not, which is part of the reason she is a very good realtor. In our personal lives, I have acted negatively and shown skepticism to too many of her ideas and plans because I couldn't see a tangible result and didn't trust her vision enough. Time and time again, she has proven her plans and visions to be spot-on. Let me reverse engineer this to give you an example of what I mean. Right now I am trying to trust that vinyl plank flooring on a wall is a good idea. We are putting it in an entry way area that used to be a closet because she transformed it in a house we bought in DeForest which she thought was an option to live in when I only thought we would live in Waunakee when we moved to the Madison area to be closer to extended family and friends from our foreclosure we bought and fixed up in Beloit that I was deathly afraid to buy because it was not super pretty when we signed on the dotted line, but we were able to fix a lot of things, partially with money earned from selling a car that I had not considered we didn't need anymore. Everything in that long and rambling backwards story is basically something I doubted that she had a plan for. I appreciate these plans and I should be showing it more. -She is fun. One thing I am pretty sure I have told her several times is that without her, I would be the most boring and predictable person on earth. I would still be living in a small apartment in Beloit playing Playstation2 way too much. I would be eating cereal and frozen pizza and generally coasting through life on the path of least resistance. Without her, I wouldn't try new things, go to new places, or expand my horizons outside my comfortable little bubble. I appreciate her adventurous nature and the push she gives me to chase experiences rather than the tangible, and I should be showing it more. -She is a parent... and a darn good one. I kind of touched on this earlier with the whole morning routine and whatnot, but this goes further. Like, to the point where I need to understand that literally without her DNA my beautiful children would not exist. And without going into too many details, neither pregnancy was a piece of cake either. She sacrificed so those beautiful kids could even make their way into the world, and I need to remember what she went through every time Leah flashes her trademarked dramatic eyes or belts out "This... Girl is on FIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRE" with Alicia Keys, and every time Jackson mimics athletes on TV in our living room or sets up his wooden blocks with painstaking and borderline obsessive organization. Every time my kids say please and thank you, every time my kids clean up after themselves, every time they help in the kitchen, every time they do anything... I appreciate that it all traces back to their mother, and I should be showing it more. -She is a fighter. I've never met someone so tenacious. I've never met someone with such conviction and willingness to see things through. I've never met someone that invests themselves so deeply into things they care about. I've never met someone that so willingly sacrifices for the good of the family. I've also never met someone that can put me in my place so easily in a "discussion". But believe me, I need it. I was a total jerk growing up and assumed I was right about everything, and could usually talk my way in and out of any disagreement someone had with me. After I met Mindy, I got the (figurative) slap in the face I had so desperately needed. The pastor at our wedding told us if we would be just as stubborn about loving each other as we were about who was right and wrong sometimes, we would be great! Well, guilty as charged, we are both stubborn, but I appreciate her particular brand of stubbornness and how it has changed our lives for the better, but I need to be showing it more. If you've stuck with this blog post this long, maybe you'd be willing to read more, and believe me, I could keep going. This thing could be 10 times longer than this, but more than anything I just wanted to demonstrate one thing. My wedding vows were centered around a promise to not take Mindy Honish for granted, and I have failed miserably at it for much of the last 7 years. The day-to-day routine of life is no excuse for coasting when it comes to gratitude and appreciation. This blog exchange, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and everything else going on lately that has caused me to reflect on the concept of gratitude has made this blatantly obvious to me. Mindy, I am so very grateful for your presence in my life. Love, Me
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This is part of a "blog exchange" program of dozens of educators around the country through the month of November. I will be posting many other posts with the theme of gratitude from guest authors on a special GUEST BLOGGERS PAGE, and highly encourage you to go read their work and check them out! As a 23 year old kid fresh out of UW-Stevens Point, I entered a job market relatively high on supply and low on demand for Social Studies teachers. Wisconsin had just passed legislation to cripple the powers of the Teachers Union and it was a time of great uncertainty for the profession in our state. Math and Science were the hotly recruited positions, but I knew the reality was any openings for a Social Studies teacher would mean my resume would be one of hundreds on an administrator’s desk. I took a calculated gamble: risk looking like an unprofessional goofball that was too young and lacked the seriousness for the job by encouraging anyone thinking about hiring me to look at my crappy parody music videos on YouTube.
Somehow, some way, Beloit Turner called and said they wanted me to come down for an interview, and as I sat there rehearsing canned lines in my ill-fitting JCPenney clearance rack suit, an important looking man walked by, stopped, turned to face me and said “you’re General Dan Sickles!” referring to a “mockumentary” I had made for a college assignment that was posted on my YouTube channel (which you can watch here). It was fun to make, but we’re talking about scenes with the stock Windows MovieMaker grainy black and white effect while my roommate threw a basketball at my leg to simulate Civil War cannon fire. It definitely risked making me look like an unprofessional goofball that was too young and lacked the seriousness for the job. “Dennis McCarthy! I’m the Superintendent,” he said as he extended a hand for me to shake. “This is either really good, or really bad,” I thought to myself. Turns out, it was a really good thing that I led the administrative team of Beloit Turner to my YouTube channel, because they wanted someone that was willing to get creative, think differently, and do whatever it took to engage kids. They held true to that for the entire seven years I taught there, and I received nothing but guidance, encouragement and support. I did some dumb stuff, don’t get me wrong… like, thinking I could use Nacho Libre to help demonstrate the physical geography of Mexico-level dumb stuff, but they seemed to recognize the intent was in the right place and didn’t want me to stop trying new things. I will always be grateful for Superintendent McCarthy. As a 23 year old interviewing for the job, he made me feel like despite his position and title, he would be approachable and work with me as teammates rather than a boss, and for the entire 7 years I was at Turner, he stayed true to his word. He took time to connect on a personal level, and I had countless discussions about football with him. His daughter was in my class for the first three years of my career, each a different subject and grade, each the first time I had ever taught it, and he saw firsthand some terrible rookie mistakes, but never said a single negative thing about it. This anecdote is actually only a small window into my experience with administration over 7+ years as a professional educator. However, as I reflect on my experiences with all of the administrators I have worked with, I’ve realized how common it has been for my administrators to treat me with the same levels of respect, friendliness and collegiality. I may be lucky, and I may be the exception, but in the month of November with gratitude and thankfulness on our minds, I feel it is appropriate to show gratitude to my own administration. Administration… In the lexicon of educators, this is often a swear word to be spit out with disgust and contempt. Everyone in education has heard administration horror stories. At its worst, administration can be a roadblock to common sense solutions, a wet blanket to creativity and passion, an ineffective middle-man for contact with the community, or a pusher of bad ideas. The very definition of the word administration refers to running a school. I’ve been a classroom teacher for 8 years and have not once experienced any desire to become an administrator. But just because I don’t want to become an administrator doesn’t mean I have experienced those horror stories first hand. I cannot think of a single administrator I’ve worked with that hasn’t made me a better teacher in some way. I cannot think of a single administrator I’ve worked with that hasn’t earned my respect. I am unbelievably blessed and I genuinely feel bad for educators that do have those horror stories about their own administrations. Thinking about the struggle that happens between administrators and teachers reminds me of the song "Know Your Enemy" by Rage Against the Machine. Yes, I know my enemies! They're the teachers who taught me to fight me Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite All of which are American dreams Sometimes teachers think administrators are pitting us against each other, forcing us to compromise, fit into a box of how they want things to go, all while ignoring the realities of the situation. I admit, I've thought of it that way before... But those thoughts never remained permanent. That's not what any of my administrators have actually believed and followed through on. There are plenty of ACTUAL enemies to what we are trying to do in the classroom. Poverty, hunger, parent and student apathy, broken homes, lack of resources and funding, social distractions and pop culture, the list goes on and on and on. Administration is not the enemy. Don't misdirect your rage against the machine of your school district. There are other machines involved. |
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June 2021
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