Be Kind, Be Professional, Find Solutions

Be Kind

This is becoming a buzz word that has gained traction in the last year. When I first started in education the saying, “Don’t let them see you smile until Christmas” still was brought up by some of my colleagues. Looking back on that time, young teachers wanted to be more involved than some of the veteran teachers and the younger teachers were often accused of trying to be a friend rather than a teacher. It takes practice to learn how to be friendly and still maintain a role of the person that oversees students. 

The next stage of this progression from the early years of teaching to now was a statement that became more palatable, “We are not friends, but we can be friendly.” This appeased the hard nose teachers and the more touchy-feely teachers. I use those terms only to show opposites that existed in many schools during this time. The problem with friendly is that it does not provide the depth needed to truly impact each other. This need to reach deeper from friendly to kindness does not just apply from teacher to student, but teacher to teacher, administrator to teacher and to anyone else involved in the school. Being friendly is when you are walking in the hallway and you say hello to someone passing by. Kind, is deeper involvement in the understanding and empathy for a person’s situation. If a student walks into the classroom and appears angry, kindness allows for the deeper understanding that the anger needs to be addressed for the betterment of the student. It could mean delaying other actions for the classroom while making that student better prepared for the rest of the day. Listening, knowing the people around you, aware of situations that people are dealing with and more importantly understanding that you do not know the issues that anyone is dealing with, so you act with kindness. We have all been in a place where stress was high, difficult life situations were arising and you still had to perform in class. People around you were unaware of what you were dealing with personally. Kind people stood out to you at that time. People that supported you, they did not necessarily ask what was wrong but were there helping you through the day. That is kind. Not just waving at you in the hall it is far deeper to be kind. 

Be Professional

If you are consistently kind, then when the time comes for professionalism that is needed as an educator to have a harder discussion, allow others to know that behind this professional decision is a person with a good heart. Difficult decisions you must make as a professional may not seem kind to all involved. But as a professional hard decision are needed almost daily. If every single day for an entire semester, you are truly kind to people, then you make a decision that impacts those same people the likelihood of them understanding the place you are coming from is increased. They may not like the professional steps, but they understand your heart. The mistake when making professional decisions that is common is when the parties involved get into a heightened state of emotion and lose the professional side of the discussion. Another common mistake when working in the professional realm is understanding the difference between a professional discussion and an adult discussion. Many times, a parent may stray off the professional path regarding language, actions, etc., but they are not there in a professional manner they are being an adult. It is the job of the professionals to maintain the professionalism and keep the emotions under control. Again, the kind rapport that can be built prior to any professional decisions can help support those tough decisions.

Find Solutions

The Solution Centered Mindset ? was developed to build curriculum options. It morphed into a program development process and now is used in everyday life. Knowing the solution needed allows for progress to be made to reach the solution. It is curious now to just formalize this process and how it helps people understand how to get to a solution. Finding solutions is easy. To make solutions happen is hard. Why is it hard? The solution must find the path, around, over limitations that slow down how you get to the solution. 

A solution is “My students will all read this book by next week.” What could limit that from happening? Not enough books, time, reading levels, interruptions, motivation, other items that need to be taught are potential limiting factors. Can you address these limits prior to allow the solution to happen? You just created a new path to reach the desired solution. Solution: Develop a college and career readiness program by the end of the school year. What would limit you from doing this program. Solution: Move 28 students into the next grade with above grade level reading ability. What will limit you from doing this? Solution: Put a pool in the backyard prior to next summer. All these solutions have limiting factors, but all factors can be addressed and acted upon to create a path to the solution. 

People that find solutions are people schools need. Funding, time, staffing, pandemic restrictions, personal situations, make it easy to forget that solutions are needed. But all of those limiting factors can be addressed to improve your situation. Identification of limiting factors allow a clear thought process to find your solution and make it happen in a timely manner. People that find solutions are valuable. Value the people that question and want to improve with kindness and professionalism.