An Ode to Kindergarten-a lesson in passionate relationships

I started my teaching career in high schools. I started my school administrator career in a high school. I simply never dreamed of working with elementary school children. They just seemed so distant and grubby and needy. This is my seventh year as an elementary school principal and I readily admit that I was wrong. So wrong.

At back to school night this year, I talked to parents about "passion" and my path from high school to elementary. The somewhat unorthodox journey has shown me something scary. Our students enter school as kindergartners with so much passion, curiosity, excitement, and pure love for their teacher, classmates, and school. They are willing to try, to create, to build, to grow, to wonder, and to challenge. But in so many schools, the "kindergarten" mindset and passion wanes for students as they move through elementary school, into middle school, and finally into high school. What about how schools are currently constructed drains the passion from our children (and adults)? Wait, don't answer that. It doesn't matter. What matters is what we do to cultivate that "kindergarten" mindset for students (and staff) after they leave kindergarten.

In Part Two of The Innovators Mindset, George Couros focuses on relationships. He writes, "If we want meaningful change, we have to make a connection to the heart before we can make a connection to the mind." I contend that as school leaders, we have to strive to protect the time for teachers to make that heart to heart connection with their students and we have to make that same connection with teachers. I don't have any special "tricks" or "activities" to make this happen (well I do but I am going to bed soon). The best way to do it is to be authentic, humble, caring, mindful, patient, and responsive. Innovative change will happen. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes in spurts and with bumps. But it will rarely happen without a commitment to showing children and teachers how passionate you are---ABOUT THEM. So here it is, an ode to kindergarten students.