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| Please feel free to share your suggestions and comments with me. You may e-mail me at: richard.stear@rcsdk12.org | ||
From the President's Desk . . .
A Thanksgiving Memory
Isn't it surprising how small, seemingly insignificant events
in life are, in fact, momentous turning points? Looking at some
past Thanksgiving pictures recently reminded me of this basic
truth.
As the photographer forty-seven years ago, in ninth grade,
and possessing a Kodak flash camera, I was unknowingly capturing
a transition moment. The camera was an eighth grade graduation
present and had the big flashbulbs that crackled and sizzled
when used. The picture in my album (at which I am looking today)
shows my brothers Ed and Jim, along with cousin Judy, mugging
for the camera as they sit at the children's table in the living
room of my grandfather's house on Thanksgiving. They do not know
they are at the children's table. I do not really understand
that I am no longer.
Behind me, in another picture, are the "grownups"
mom, dad, uncles and aunts, and of course, grandpa. Grandma is
probably doing what grandmas do on Thanksgiving, scurrying around
the kitchen. And I, after recording these scenes, am about to
sit down and join them, at the grownup table.
As I enter that adult world, I am also about to start my advanced
training, first begun at the children's table, in the most basic
of American values, tolerance and a sense of family. I will see
in operation, forbearance among adults about they different ways
they eat, the different ways they think, and the different ways
they act. And I will begin to see the different ways that the
kids at the childrenÕs table are treated (as Americans-in-training.)
This is not to say we all loved what each other did or said
or were. No family is like that. And that is true of our society
at large as well, where we display even less tolerance than we
would show Aunt Edith or Uncle Joe. But we are still, and remain
today, basically tolerant, respectful and able to accept into
our family almost all of our extended American brothers and sisters,
even though there may be occasional egregious violations of that
rule.
Some twenty years later, living in Nigeria, I was acutely
aware of my "American-ness." Surrounded by tribal hatreds
and religious and cultural divisions, liberally dosed with European
condescension, I slowly grew to understand that Africans and
Europeans alike just didn't get it. When we vocally and liberally
criticized our government or its leaders or our fellow citizens
during this time of turmoil over the Vietnam War, it was not
the same mindset that was allowing Hausas to kill Ibos in the
Biafran War that was occurring around us. The values that Americans
continued to operate on, with lapses to be sure, were still a
basic acceptance of other Americans as part of the family and
a basic tolerance for our individual differences.
Now I know that this concept may be strongly debated by some
Americans who may feel that this is not the case. But, by and
large, our American experience has been one of growing a society
that works out its differences within the framework I have laid
out, and attempting to rectify its past violations of that framework.
To a greater extent than not, we recognize all other Americans
as a part of our "family" and we tolerate, for the
most part, our "differences" Small examples of this
abound, from the pierced tongue of my checkout clerk at Wegmans
to the variety of churches in my town of Penfield. I found I
was even able to put up with, with some angst, my oldest daughter's
eggplant-colored hair in college.
What the terrorists of September 11th expected, I suppose,
was that their terrible actions would cause our society to fracture
and fail. But they were wrong in the same way the "non-Americans"
in Nigeria were wrong. They just did not and do not get it. They
do not understand that the ability for us to tolerate and accept
each other's differences, without necessarily agreeing with them
is as deeply ingrained and pervasive as is our acceptance of
other Americans as part of our extended family, even if we don't
always wish to see them all the time.
It is not so different from my Thanksgiving forty-seven years
ago or our Thanksgiving now with my wife and daughter, her brother,
my brother and his girlfriend. We really are, as Sly and the
Family Stone point out, fam-i-ly. And part of what we do every
Thanksgiving, in a small, seemingly insignificant way is to re-instill
those basic American qualities of tolerance and family in our
children and in ourselves as a society.
As we enjoy our holidays, as we create the small insignificant
moments that are in reality big momentous turning points, let
us rejoice in these unique American values and continue putting
them to work in our everyday lives. Maybe we can even agree that
Central Office and building leadership are both family elements
working together for our students and can respect our different
individual contributions. That would make another great picture
for my album.
ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE FOR EFFECTIVE SCHOOL LEADERSHIP
1. Leaders Know and Understand What it means and What it Takes to be a Leader.
Leadership is the act of identifying important goals and then motivating and enabling others to devote themselves and all necessary resources to achievement. It includes summoning one's self and others to learn and adapt to the new situation represented by the goal.
- Richard Stear
Richard Stear is president of the Rochester Administrators, Supervisors Association in Rochester