I know you. It is the night before your first day as a school head. It is likely you will not sleep much tonight. Eventually, the morning will come, and when you get up, likely before the sun, you will begin a journey I can only describe as sacred. As a former public school principal and a founder and head of school in independent schools for nearly 20 years, I use sacred with intention because this service is bigger than any and of us. Each day, we encounter both the most beautiful and triumphant essence of humanity, and at times, its messiest darkness. In so doing, we contribute to a better world.
Many believe they understand our role as school heads and certainly have opinions about it. Despite the fact that, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are about 100,000 schools (and thus, school leaders) serving about 54 million young people in our country’s public and independent schools—few of us have the time to share our reflections widely, and we hear from “experts” and thought leaders about what we should do.
Rarely are these messengers those who wake up before dawn, greet the children, write the lessons, console a child when she cries, share wonderful or difficult news with a family, make unpopular but necessary changes, withstand criticism for a decision that was more complex than anyone was willing to admit, or smile ear-to-ear at the theatrical monologue of a child who once would not speak.
At the beginning of my eighth and final year of headship at The Wheeler School (RI), I’ve been reflecting on the commitments and ideas that have kept me grounded in this shared vocation of ours and am eager to offer some of what I’ve learned.
1. Gather the young people in your communities with intention. Recent research and literature, such as Pew Research Center’s “Modeling the Future of Religion in America” report and Robert Putnam’s 2021 book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, explores the decline in religious affiliation, community, and the kind of civic engagement—all areas that encourage human connection and meaning.
With workplaces increasingly remote, schools are young peoples’ best chance to experience human interaction, creativity, and thoughtful debate. In our schools, they can learn that a vibrant democracy requires a palpable understanding and appreciation of difference, a sense of what I think of as “one of many-ness,” and the importance of many voices. Every day, our charge is to ensure that the millions of young people learn how to support, push, befriend, engage, and live in peace alongside their peers. At every chance, we should encourage conversation, deliberation, playful engagement, and dynamism in our classrooms and hallways.
2. Center the practice of thinking. Schools provide the space for learning to think about ideas with others. Our students want and deserve to engage in a variety of exercises that inspire and empower them to use their minds. In the mid-2000s, at my fledgling public school, we worked on tools to inspire and assess exceptional teaching. Instead of measuring the exact structure of a lesson or its adherence to any planning tool du jour, we began with the core belief that a good lesson should maximize the number of minutes that students are invited to think.
Thinking in a lesson can be defined as writing, debating, considering, weighing alternatives, or consulting others. At times, it can include listening to a lecture, but thinking is about more than listening. It’s about being provoked, challenged to change, pushed to link two disparate ideas together, or to experience another’s perspective, even—especially—when it contradicts our own.
Our job as leaders is to ensure our students get this daily practice, so support your teachers to measure student success by maximizing thinking minutes every day. At one school, we used faculty meeting time for colleagues to share lessons on how to increase thinking time and to get feedback.
3. Elevate the art and science of teaching. Teachers are leaving the profession, many because they are not being heard or seen. Teaching at its best is an ineffable, almost magical practice, but we lean on the science more than the art. Yes, we need the science of teaching, and constructing a great lesson is a precise business. But great teaching is grounded in empathy, instinct, style, and love.
It is one of the most purely human acts and most meaningful vocations people have ever dreamed up, going all the way back to the oral traditions around the fires and in the forests. As school leaders, we need to see those teachers, talk about them, seed their great work with time and resources, and nurture a culture of collegiality and restless innovation that creates space for breakthrough ideas to ignite. Encourage teachers to bring their nascent or baked ideas to you and others, invite and offer feedback, and try new things often.
4. Practice patience over speed. Our role brings us face-to-face with our own vulnerabilities, our values, our strengths and true weaknesses. They show up in rubber-hits-the-road moments of decision, wanting fast and visible consequences. On the other hand, we are often standing alone against those banging on the door (or on the keypads of social media) with clarity and urgency uncomplicated by careful thought, and a desperate need or problem to fix.
We will need to hold steady—in that multiple truths can be held at once, in our responsibilities to lead amid the noise, and in our convictions and focus on the students. Despite the urge to act quickly, we need to stand firm, breathe, and slow down. It does no good to simplify complexity in the spirit of speed. In a world that has no patience for patience, this may be the greatest lesson we can give our community and our students.
5. Walk on the high road. This job can bring us to our knees. It requires resilience and grace in equal measure. Because we are all human and flawed, we are subject to challenging behavior in our students, parents, and even at times our own colleagues. When the job feels overwhelming, we need to give ourselves permission to take a break. Take a long walk, go quiet, or vent to a close friend or family member.
Then, get on the high road: stand up, walk around, and find some kids and teachers who inspire you. Notice the way the teacher read that passage with so much excitement and passion. The way that student discussion demonstrated comfort with a complexity that would confound most adults. Remember that this high road is the only one we have, and our communities will see and mirror our behaviors and values as they see them. We must take care of ourselves so that we can model for students how to manage difficulty and aspire to our better angels.
To do what must be done in our schools and for our students is a massive undertaking. The need for evolution is everywhere: to refresh our purpose of education, to reinvent our classrooms and regroup our students, to increase the reward and number of great educators of the next generation, to bring curriculum up-to-date, to courageously optimize the potential of artificial intelligence while solving for its dangers, and so much more. As school leaders, we will do it while spinning plates and juggling balls of fire.
Between moments of heart-wrenching difficulty, many more days will leave us in awe. From the moments our students run to greet each other in September, with fresh school supplies in new backpacks, to graduation day full of pomp and ceremony, and plenty of the 400,000ish minutes in-between, there will be rushes of joy and satisfaction that remind you that we are doing the best, most world-changing, heart-swelling work there is. Best of all, those moments will remind us that this is bigger than any of us, and that maybe we, as school leaders, have the best chance to get us all closer to that more perfect union and the best of all possible worlds.