This week has been extremely frustrating. Without going into too much detail, our state recently passed a law that will require a significant amount of extra work for many teachers. This law doesn’t address a widespread problem (there was only a single misunderstood incident in one school), but a few partisan legislators jumped on it, blowing it all out of proportion to pander to their base … and the end result was this new unnecessary law. Grrrrrr!
I was venting about this a bit to my old mentor, who today is an endowed chair at a major university. He’s had a lifetime of experience in multiple settings (including top leadership positions in Texas and Pennsylvania), and has served as a consultant to hundreds of school systems in more than forty states. Simply put, he’s “been there and done that” too many times to count. He’s always been a fount of wisdom and I truly value his input.
After we discussed this situation back and forth for a while, he offered this comment that was so insightful I just had to share it: “Forget about trying to influence the system. Focus on working with individual students, individual teachers, and individual schools and you will make a meaningful difference. And occasionally, you may even get the chance to influence policy on a broader scale.”
Wow, just wow! I hope this encouragement to “refocus” helps you as much as it did me, especially in these “interesting” times.
Note: Just to be clear, this post is only my personal opinion. It in no way represents an official position by my department, my college, or my university.