Be Nice!

There's a reason I never really enjoyed watching the early episodes of American Idol every year, because I don't enjoy watching others be embarrassed on purpose or disrespected in such a public way (or private for that matter).

Today, I was embarrassed to be in my own profession of education by watching this happen.  We all know that at this time of the year, staff development is taking place during that week before school starts.  Every topic, session, etc is intentional, by design, has a purpose.  The purpose and rationale may not be clearly stated or communicated well, but I promise, experiencing both sides of education, from the teacher's point of view, and from an administrator's point of view, there's a vision to the information presented.  There's always a reason behind the information shared.  Perhaps, for privacy reasons or other reasons, the rationale can't be shared, but from the limited admin knowledge I have, I know that Everything is on Purpose.

And I will stop right here and just put my two cents in, that if you don't understand the vision of your administrators or school, it's your responsibility to ask, to find out.  If an administrator can't articulate that vision in a manner that others can understand, it can't be fulfilled, and if there's no vision at all, well, without vision, the people perish.

Today, I witnessed a presentation where there was confusion on the participants end, perhaps some misunderstanding, and instead of someone asking questions, they chose to be unkind to the presenter.  Are we not in the business of walking our talk?  Do we not ask our students to be respectful, kind to others?  I happened to be sitting by the person that said these unkind things and I know the presenter heard the words from the "peanut gallery".  Though I didn't see the presenters face, there was an audible pause in the room, a gasp even.  It was that moment when Simon Cowell tells someone something earth shattering and you just have to stand by and watch.  I truly felt for the presenter and she did a fantastic job of shrugging it off, not responding, but I'm sure that it will stick with them as a bad impression.

You know, we so often teach our kids to be kind, that yes words do hurt, like taking a piece of paper and crumbling it up and then trying to smooth it back out again.  Those wrinkles are still in the paper and will always be there.  We may be able to overlook them at some point, but they are still there.

So, to you, when presented with something that you don't understand, when the why isn't clearly stated, choose to BE KIND anyways.  That presenter is doing what was asked of them, what they have been tasked with from someone with more information than us, who understands that this is important.

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