The Inspiration of an 11 Year Old

Sometimes on my blog, I do share the personal connection of my life with my professional life at CW.  I guess when I think about it, I do not know how to separate the two.

I am "all in" as Principal at CW.  I bring the same passion and love that I have as a father and husband to my work as a Principal.  In fact, I don't even like using the term work.  All 570 CW students are "my kids" during the day and I readily share my experiences with my own family with the students and staff of my CW family.

This past week was memorable for myself and many members of our CW Family.  On Wednesday and Thursday, our students simulated a Relay for Life during PE and ran over 900 miles combined.  They also raised over $6,000 dollars to support cancer research.

I spent an afternoon running with 3 different 6th grade PE classes.  It was great to see their energy and excitement as they used Chromebooks to digitally track the number of laps each student was running.  There was music playing and shouts of encouragement throughout the hour.

I had set a goal of running a mile with each class.  It was a great idea during the 1st PE class...I felt fine.  However, during the 3rd class, I had begun to question my goal.  Not wanting to let my students down, I was able to finish the mile with all three classes.

What I did not share with my students was that I was running for my mother-in-law.  This past December, she lost her battle to pancreatic cancer at the age of 59.  This is something that has been extremely difficult for our family.  I felt I had a purpose when running with our students...my own purpose.

During the Relay, a teacher shared with my how she had students complete a Visible Thinking Routine called a "step-inside" about putting themselves in the shoes of someone impacted by cancer.  Some of these writings were shared with me.  I was blown away at the maturity and sense of purpose of our students.  Their words in describing the emotions and purpose that the Relay meant for them helped me to realize that many of us had a "personal purpose" when running in the Relay.  There was one girl in particular...an 11 year old student who wrote with such depth and power about a relative who had battled cancer.  She had a sense of personal understanding of the need of for a Relay event! This "personal purpose" provided motivation and greater meaning for some of our students.

This connection to purpose has kept me thinking (that's probably why I am writing this blog post now.)  When we develop a purpose in ourselves and in our students...it leads to passion and motivation. Running in Relay for Life was not something our students felt like they had to do...they had a passion for it.  A PURPOSE!

I left school this week with an even greater passion to make sure all students feel connected to CW so that they feel their time at CW is filled with purpose and passion!

If you want to see a timeline of tweets from our Relay for Life, go to http://goo.gl/00gKKI

Leadership Defined

Over the weekend, I was having an important conversation with my 5 year old son, Cole.  It centered on the topic of being nice (mainly to his 2 year old sister, Aubrey).  As our conversation evolved, we kept on going back to what it meant to be nice.  At first it was hard to think about that being nice was simply saying more than being nice.  All of a sudden we started developing a list of actions of what being nice meant.  

Not pushing

Hugging

Helping color

Reading to Aubrey

The more I thought about this on Sunday and Monday, I started thinking about our 6th grade.  At the beginning of the year, we talked as a 6th grade family that we were the leaders of the building.  As 6th grade students, we help develop a Stand Up culture for our new 5th grade students.  It is our year to really find our leadership voice.

I connected the conversation I had with my son to the important actions our 6th graders would need to think about in continuing to cultivate their leadership.  My son started with a very concrete thought, "Nice meant to be nice."

In talking with some of our 6th grade students today, I posed the question, "Is a leader defined by a title?"  It was inspirational to see their young minds hard at work processing this question.  In one class, a girl started talking about what 6th graders at CW should be doing.  This was a great "aha" moment as we started to connect the concept to leadership to action.  Just because our students have the title of "6th grader" does not make them a leader.  Our students began to think deeply about how their actions develop, but also model leadership to others.

I had our students "step inside" what a 5th grade student is seeing and feeling right now.  I had them journey back into their year last year.  Believe it or not, our 5th graders are developing the actions to become 6th grade leaders at CW.  Some of our students remembered watching the actions of the 6th grade last year.

This powerful image helped to solidify the need of our 6th grade to lead through their actions.  Our 5th graders look up to them and see the messages their actions transmit.  If our 6th graders stop to pick up a piece a trash, or straighten their boots by their locker, or model the hard work of being a visible thinker...our 5th graders notice.  

Not only do our 5th graders notice...they aspire.  They aspire to continue the culture of leadership that is being developed every day by our 6th grade.

Today was a great reminder for our 6th grade that just by being in 6th grade does automatically qualify them as a leader.  It is their actions that demonstrate their leadership!