I
apologize for the long delay between posts. It has been a bit of a whirlwind
since I announced before Christmas that I will be leaving my role as
superintendent at the end of this school year. It has been a tremendous
blessing, and the highlight of my professional life, to serve in this role. I
feel extremely proud of the collective impact we have been able to make over
the past ten years and I know there is much more to do. The vision of growth
that we have worked toward at the DCS is happening in many ways but there are
still areas where we need to further improve. I am still discerning my next
professional move but I feel confident something will settle in the next month
or so.
The
impetus for me getting back to writing was a book I just finished, Educated by Tara Westover. I read quite
a bit (and I should add for clarification that most of my ‘reading’ is
listening to books in the car – that begs another question that could be good
fodder for another blog post: is listening to a book the same as reading?) and
so go through a number of books over the course of a few months. Educated impacted me in a way that I am
not sure I fully comprehend yet, and I know it will stay with me for quite a
long time to come. It is a fairly well known book, and it was on most of the
best of lists from 2018, so you may have read it. The brief summary is that
Tara Westover was raised in Idaho in a fundamentalist Mormon family and never
attended school until she went to Brigham Young as a 17-year old. Fast forward
10 years later and she has a Ph.D. from Cambridge and also studied for a year
at Harvard. You have to read the book to fill in the gaps but it is a
combination of tragedy, horror, resilience, family, triumph and sadness…and it
is quite simply one of the most compelling books that I have come across in a
long time.
What
I am processing right now after having just finished the book is the idea of
authenticity and vulnerability and how, for most of our lives, we tend not to
live fully with these concepts in mind. At least, I know I don’t – I am consistently
consciously thinking about what I say and how I will be perceived, and that can
inhibit authenticity and the willingness to express vulnerability. To be fair, I
think part of that is due to the leadership positions I have held over the past
two decades. Being in that role requires you to understand that your words,
actions and opinions can carry extra weight so many times I am hesitant to
fully share my honest thoughts. I am aware that as soon as I express my view it
can potentially skew how others view the situation. So I do want to empower
others, which is great, but I also need to reflect on how much is due to my own
inhibition and concern about how my views will be perceived.
That
is the ultimate crutch that prevents people from fully expressing themselves –
how will this be viewed by others? What will they think of me? If I show
vulnerability, will I be perceived as being weak? For Ms. Westover, she went
through the early part of her college years denying the truth about her
upbringing with her fellow students and professors. She did this even though,
in my mind at least, she would have engendered tremendous sympathy and
understanding regarding the gaps in her knowledge if she was honest about her
background. I don’t want to ruin the book for those of you who have yet to read
it but she has to hit a pretty low point before she is able to express her full
reality and consequently succeed.
What
I am processing through now is how much of ourselves do we stifle because we
fear how we will be perceived by others? And how does this stifling inhibit our
full realization as human beings? I think this concept is hitting me
particularly hard right now because I am leaving a position of leadership. I am
not 100% sure what I will be doing professionally yet moving forward but it may
not involve the same level of leadership that I have been involved with since
2001 when I first became a principal. If that happens will it enable me to be
more open about my opinions and views? Or are those fears of weakness and
confidence barriers that still need to be overcome?
I
am reading a book by Henri Nouwen for Lent called Home Tonight and there is a quote in the book by Glen Lazore which
says, “My face is a mask I order to say nothing about the fragile feelings
hiding in my soul.” Simply writing this post is a challenge for me because it
demonstrates these feelings. The one take away I hope you all get from this
post is to read Educated if you have
not done so already. Think about what Tara Westover had to go through to get to
her point of success and ideally that will give you courage to approach life,
work and decisions with more vulnerability and authenticity. I know that is
what I am taking away from it.
