April 20

Yesterday, my mother came into Saskatoon by bus from Tisdale.  I took her out for tea, taxied her around to her medical appointments, bought her a lunch to eat on her return trip to Tisdale, and made sure she was on the correct bus.  During the course of the day, we had a great visit.  The highlight was Mom telling me in her "outside" voice about her mammogram in a waiting room populated by men.  Shhh! 

Speaking of buses...Mom frequently visits my youngest sister who lives in Fort Lauderdale.  She navigates through O'Hare, La Guardia, and a number of other large international airports, but she has only been misplaced in Wadena's and Saskatoon's bus station.  True story.

Mom turns 88 on Friday.  She is such a strong, positive lady.  I remember the days when she worked a 44 hour week at the grocery store, raised five kids, cleaned, baked, took in borders, looked after livestock, and still had the energy to be the first person on the dance floor.

I also remember a profound conversation I had with Mom in my grade 12 year.  We had just finished harvesting a huge potato crop and were driving to town.  Mom asked me what I was going to do after grade 12.  I said I would probably work for a while and decide from there.  She informed me that I was going to get an education even if she had to work at three jobs to pay for my post secondary schooling.  As it turned out, I pretty much paid for my own schooling, but only because my parents had modeled a life of hard work and perseverance.  I was the first child in my extended family who went to university and the story began with the post potato harvest conversation.

The following is my next installment of The Principal's Message.

When Solomon became king, he was given a chance to choose anything he wanted – castles, riches, powerful armies.  He asked for wisdom.  His wisdom was known far and wide; therefore he was consulted by many.  Wisdom may be defined as the ability to discern what is right, true, and lasting; however, I prefer the definition: the ability to make the best use of knowledge.  There are some people who are incredibly knowledgeable, but they are not wise.  Typically, wisdom is gained through experience as we learn from past successes and failures.  Another source of wisdom is learning from the wise – standing on the shoulders of giants.

Unfortunately, the practice of gleaning wisdom from elders and those who been there before is not as prevalent in our culture as it once was.  We are more prone to “Google It” if we are looking for advice.  Indeed, I do not call my dad when I am thinking about buying an I-pad.  He doesn’t have a clue about computers, but he has lived for 85 years and 10 of those years were The Dirty Thirties.  My wise father has taught me: your income must exceed your outgo or else your upkeep will become your downfall. 

After nearly 33 years of teaching, I have experienced a few things myself; however, I would be presumptuous and vain to say I am wise.  I just know that I have experienced a few things that have given me the ability to be a better principal.  In my first few years as principal, I would wish that I could draw on my experience to make decisions, but every situation seemed to be one I had not experienced before.  There was no manual that told me what to do if there was a child eating cougar skulking around the playground or if there was parent who disagreed with a teacher.  Through those fledgling years, I had to rely on advice from wise, trusted colleagues and I had to experience a few things that were successes and failures.  Now that I am three months away from retirement, there are times when people come to me for advice and I feel honoured.  What I give them and two bucks will usually buy a cup of coffee at Tim Horton’s.

At my 50^th birthday party a few years back, someone asked me for a few words of wisdom.  I froze.  All I could think of saying was:  you don’t tug on Superman’s cape, spit into the wind, and pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger.  My purpose for writing this article is to challenge myself to come up with something better than Jim Croce’s lyrics.  What wisdom can I impart?

To begin, I believe the most important thing we can teacher our children is to be virtuous and be of solid character.  Children who are honest, patient, hardworking, and empathetic do better in school and do better in life.  The responsibility for building character does not belong to any one group.  Although character education should be the responsibility of the family, the school and the greater community have a duty to build character in children not only by teaching, but by modelling character.  Much of what children learn is caught, not taught.

What we believe about children will determine our actions toward them.  Children will live up to our expectations.  During our last teacher professional development day, I attended a session on managing difficult behaviours.  The presenter was sharing insights from Ross Greene’s book, The Explosive Child.  Greene’s philosophy is “children will do if they can”.  We must believe that children want to do well and we must do everything we can to help them succeed.  Greene states that sometimes children cannot change their behaviour because they are stuck.  Our job is to find a way so they can succeed.  A child wants to succeed, but they need help.

Another nugget of wisdom I would like to share is: we need to have hope and we need to give children hope.  There is an overabundance of bad news; there always has been bad news.  Children need to know that no matter how bad the situation, things change and become better.  They need serenity.   While I breathe- I hope.

There is so much that I have learned as a teacher and I must admit that I really don’t know much.  I am not afraid to admit most of what I share is not my own.  It’s all borrowed.  I have simply put the fruits of my labour in jars that I share with you from month to month.  My hope as we go forward is that you would take the time to take stalk of your own wisdom and generously share with the children in your life.