[The following is an excerpt from a book I’m currently writing for self-publication later this year (2018). All feedback is welcome!]
“Being a mature being means living with a purpose, your own purpose: it’s about welcoming responsibility as the nourishment a big life needs; it’s about behaving as a good citizen – finding ways to add value to the community in which you live; it’s about wrestling with your weaknesses and developing heart, mind, and spirit.” — John Taylor Gatto, Weapons of Mass Instruction
It’s important to begin our journey rising and converging by focusing on why we do what we do. This is because we all need a purpose in order to do great work, and it’s of course helpful to receive assurance that we’re making a difference in the universe and participating in something important. The majority of people enter the field of education because they want to make children’s lives better, and it’s this purpose that provides meaning to their lives. Because of this, people need a cause in which they believe in order to buy into change.
When a new strategy, protocol, or program is implemented, leaders must understand the importance of focusing on how it fits into fulfilling the team’s purpose. To go through the motions doing something in which there’s no buy-in because it doesn’t connect to one’s purpose makes a person feel hollow inside. People require a cause in which they believe in order to have a purpose. This is why some teachers end up being miserable: they don’t see a connection between why they became an educator and what’s being implemented at their school sites.
Sebastian Junger, author of the excellent book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, writes how oftentimes people are happier during war than peacetime. He cites the Blitz during World War II when the Germans bombed England in 1940 and 1941. These mass air attacks targeted not just British industrial targets, but also towns and cities. This was a frightening time for England, and no one in his or her right mind would want this devastation to happen anywhere. Even so, Britons came together and displayed a level of heroism that’s truly inspiring. Later, there would be accounts of people who lived through the Blitz who looked back at that time of their lives fondly Why is this? Because they banded together and had a purpose.
The Britons definitely had a reason for existence; it was to stay alive and help others stay alive. This laser like focus was something everyone could buy into, and in hindsight the people of England remembered this purpose, and the solidarity it formed, with a sense of nostalgia.
When you have a reason for living, there are tasks you want to accomplish in order to support what you love.
So why don’t many teachers and administrators look back at the past decade (or two decades, or three decades) of their work and feel the same solidarity and fulfillment of purpose when it comes to their school or district? It isn’t simply because they’ve experienced conflict over the course of their careers. As we read earlier, there will always be conflict and chaos at school sites. In fact, you can have a significant amount of conflict within an organization, and it can continue thriving.
In the incredible book Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl writes, “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.” There is always a web of tension in every situation. Sometimes the web is barely perceptible, and other times it’s as if Metallica is rocking out in the room. Teachers who are unhappy at work don’t hate their jobs simply because there’s tension; the problem is they didn’t believe the focus and decisions of their leaders were right for the students.
Britons clearly understood the focus: survive! Likewise, educational leaders must have a strong and simple focus on what’s important at school sites, and then this focused message must be communicated in both actions and words on a daily basis to students, staff, and all stakeholders. The purpose must be communicated 24/7–there is no downtime in the 21st Century.
RISE AND CONVERGE 