As engaged parents, we say we want our kids to do their best, but what we often mean in our hearts is we want the best for them. We even hope for our kids to be the best. It’s hard not to when schools now present us with charts showing academic growth and achievement over time and sports teams begin try-outs (and cuts) as young as 3rd grade. Our society is inundated with competition that we are prone to over-emphasize and leads us to confuse different stages of development with not doing, or being, our best.
I’ve recognized this parallel in my professional life recently, which compels me to share because we don’t outgrow expectations that need to be tempered. There is a huge need for instructional leadership in education and the profession often highlights the difference in the principal as “manager” versus “instructional leader”. The manager runs the building, manages the employees, solves the immediate problems; this is how principals have operated historically. The instructional leader guides the learning of adults and children in the building and improves academic outcomes; this is the added expectation of principals within the past ten years. Both are more than full-time jobs, but expected, usually from one person based on the financial standings of most public schools.
I have spent the last few years with the privilege of being solely an instructional leader, developing structures and processes to support teachers and principals in improving teaching and learning. I didn’t have the distraction of the daily minutia to keep me from this important mission. For the past few months, I have had the privilege of being a principal, developing the deep relationships with students, families, and employees and running a building. I have been too distracted with the daily minutia to fully do all I am capable of as an instructional leader. It’s right here where I realize how similar my personal frustration is to how we set up our kids for frustration. I know what my own best mix of these roles could look like and that I’m not there…right now. I see clearly how well some of my peers have developed and managed these two skillsets, which guides my own growth and where I will support them when I return as an instructional coach. I can easily allow myself frustration that I’m not doing my best, or the best as it were, but I can also acknowledge that where I am is where I am supposed to be in my development at this stage. Realizing this in our kids will not only help us as parents and teachers, but will definitely help our kids to focus on the effort over the accomplishment, which is where learning happens. Refocusing on learning helps all of us to refocus on the real purpose of school.
It is important for educators and parents alike to realize where we, and our kids, are developmentally and give each the grace and time we deserve to grow, while maintaining high expectations for effort. Competition should be identified as an engagement strategy, but not as the standard against which we measure ourselves.