Your Words, My Words

I recently had the opportunity to attend #EdCampNavasota, my first EdCamp.  Three days later and I'm still unpacking the things I experienced.  I imagined in my head this day filled with classes on specific sites, programs, products.  And while there was a little of that, there were more about pedagogy types of things, like building campus culture, blogging, social media in the classroom, and formative assessment that lead to some interesting conversations with no agenda with some folks that I have followed through Twitter for some time now.  What overarching theme came from those conversations was that "we", the collective educational "we" are in charge of telling our story, to make sure it's one that is positive for our students, families, communities, as well as staff.  Obviously, every event that happens within a school isn't positive, but it's our responsibility that when folks walk in and walk out of our campuses that they know some certainties.  They are valued, respected, cared for, kept safe, treated with dignity and integrity.  It's about relationships and making sure that we take care of those left in our charge...that they are better for having known us and having spent some time in our class/school/employ.

I could speak about the things we hear and see and experience from time to time and how they are not all positive, but I know, as well as any parent knows, that not every day is sunshine and roses.  But even when those days creep in and seem to overwhelm us, we must, let me just say it again, we MUST, still treat others with dignity, integrity, value, respect, safety, etc.  What I've come to learn is that the words we say out loud, become the words others hear inside themselves.

You see, when I complain about how I wish I were thinner, how I don't like some aspect of my body, my daughters are hearing this and learning to become critical of themselves as well, that there is something wrong with them.  A similar situation happens in schools, we complain about how the students won't line up, walk quietly somewhere, run around the room, and on and on.  But what needs to happen in both situations, is that there is some training, that needs to happen.  I need to retrain my brain that vegetables are what I need, they taste great, and the teacher needs to stop complaining and putting negativity into student's thoughts, and train with a calm demeanor what the expectations are, and know that a single training might not fix it all, just as a single healthy meal might not make me thin.

But the bottom line to all this, is that we need to be cautious of our words.  You see our spoken words are the words that others carry with them and hear inside them when we are gone.  I don't know about you, but I want to leave a positive legacy.