Author: Latoya Dixon, Ph.D.

“Let’s be good stewards of the unknown by embracing this time as a time to reimagine our profession, to bring back the joy to teaching and learning, and to do what our children need us to do: be steady. This will not be an easy task and it won’t be perfect. Let’s all lead during this uncertain time with the certainty that our profession and public education is a cornerstone of America’s democracy.”

–From my blog post, Leading In Uncertain Times: A Call for Unity, July 26, 2020

There should be no doubt now. There should not have been any before the Corona virus took hold of our lives, our work, and our socializing. Public education is an essential cornerstone of American democracy. Our approach and operation moving forward must be one that honors the clear indication of the needed change to the way we conduct teaching, learning, and leading. Here are a few insights that come to my mind in this regard.

1. Leaders must become comfortable and competent at leading change. The future of public education is uncertain and the ability to adapt to the social and structural changes occurring in our world is going to be a critical component in leading effectively. Leaders who are future focused, visionary, and willing to utilize innovation and flexibility to produce better outcomes for both students and staff will outlast those who maintain a fixed mindset centered heavily on the management of people and operations rather than the creation of new opportunities and experiences.

2. The voices, needs, interests, and passions of students must be honored in the way we approach the teaching, learning, and assessment practices. Caring and trusting relationships and authentic connection with each student is of critical importance. If we don’t provide students with the personalized experience they desire and deserve, they may seek other avenues to equip themselves with the skills, knowledge, and characteristics they need and desire. Students will demand and develop a sense of community with or without pubic education’s invitation. To combat this, we must work to ensure a sense of belonging and affiliation for every student we educate coupled with opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in authentic ways.

3. The post-pandemic successful teacher must be provided with personalized professional learning opportunities and given the flexibility to innovate in his or her classroom. Further, the voices of teachers must be honored in what we ask of them and how we support their efforts to provide students with high quality, meaningful, and relevant learning experiences. These teachers will demand a sense of community and an opportunity to lead from their classrooms to improve their professional experience and the learning experiences of students.

Our ability to look forward towards a brighter and more equitable future in public education matters more than it may have ever before. The consequences of missing and failing to seize the opportunity before us are large and serious. Let’s make sure we’ve learned from our past, but more importantly, let’s ready ourselves for a better future for all of our children, those who serve alongside of us, and do so by redefining success for ourselves and our students.

Until next time-Be you! Be true! Be a hope builder!

Latoya

Hey y’all,

I hope you are all taking some time to relax, refresh, and rejuvenate your mind, body, and spirit this summer. After teaching and leading during a global pandemic, I believe self-care isn’t just a good idea, but necessary to be your best self. If I’ve learned nothing else during COVID-19, I’ve learned to protect my mental health and to take mine and that of others seriously. Our wellness-mind, body, and spirit-matters.

But that’s not why I’m writing this letter. I’m writing to plead with each of you. Please promise me that you will not return to the past, “go back to normal,” or relish in the comfort of teaching, learning, and leading in the same ways you did pre-COViD. I feel compelled to remind you of the enormous opportunity we have before us. We know that many of those practices and routines we were allegiant to pre-COViD were not working-for our students, our families, or us! Yet, it can be so tempting to seek comfort, and especially so in times of uncertainty.

I’ll be the first to admit it: the future of public education is unclear. However, I hope we embrace this as a chance to create the future we know our students, their families, and our fellow educators so desperately need. This is an opportunity to finally abandon a system of mass learning, teaching to the middle, and conditioning students to care more about their G.P.A. than their passions. Let’s use this as an opportunity to design an education system that helps children find the intersection of their most competent skills and passions, to design meaningful and relevant learning experiences, that have timeless value and enduring lessons.

I know what you’re thinking. How do we do that? What about the tests? What about school report cards? What if it doesn’t work? What if we fail?

I’d like to counter those thoughts by asking these questions: Why not? What if we improve the system for all involved? What if we redefine success? What if we create a new way of thinking about public education, it’s’ purpose, and value? What if we create a spark that draws the best and brightest minds to our profession? What if are children end up more ready for life that they’ve ever been before?

As much as we find comfort in routine, I hope we find the courage and execute the bravery it takes to chart a new course. We are either held hostage by our fear or made free by our courage. I’m choosing courage. Who’s with me? Our children deserve it. Our families deserve it. Our profession deserves it. We deserve a new day in public education. Look forward!

Until next time, be you! Be true! Be a hope builder!

Latoya

The last three weeks have been an important time for me. I’ve had an opportunity to pause from the daily grind and routine. I knew I was in need of it, but I had no idea the extent to which I needed a moment to clear my heart, my mind, and be still and quiet. For the first time in a very long time I did not present at the South Carolina School Administrators Summer Leadership Conference. Instead, I was able to spend my time reconnecting with others I had not seen in person in quite some time, attend sessions as a learner, and make new connections as well. At the start of June, I was talking with a friend about how exasperated I was feeling, and I shared with her that I was uncertain if that feeling was due to COVID-19 and working during a pandemic, over extending myself in my desire to help anyone that asks for assistance, or if I was just in a season of being overwhelmed that was lasting a bit longer that I desired. My friend very simply encouraged me to put boundaries in place to take care of myself and to provide myself with time and opportunity to receive as much as I was giving to other people, work, and areas in my life. I needed to pause and be still. My mind, body, and spirit needed a clearing and a reset. The last two weeks have been exactly what I needed, and I’ve learned so much from pausing that I felt compelled to share it here in this blog post.

To clarify, pausing and stopping are not synonymous. There’s an important distinction between the two words that needs to be acknowledged. To stop means to come to an end, to close, but pausing is a brief interruption. Pausing allows us to remain engaged and committed to our purpose and life’s work while simultaneously taking a brief period to renew our mind, body, and spirit in ways that feed our hearts and souls what is needed for us for us to continue it journey. Think of a hiker who desires to complete an arduous trail hike. Pausing for water, food, or to observe nature allows for rest and renewal, and without it, the hiker’s ability to finish the journey is compromised. Leaders must do the same thing if we intend to complete our journey.

Secondly, pausing allows us to be fully present. When we are not at the mercy of email, the next meeting, the next due date, or deep in the throes of planning for the next big assignment, we can be fully present. Our undivided attention can be given to those things which are most important. We can fully engage without a lingering feeling that we are compromising our dedication to all the other things we need to get done. What a gift it is to be able to be fully present and in the moment. When we spend too much time anticipating what’s next, we can miss some of the most powerful experiences and interactions in our lives.

Finally, the benefits of pausing and what it can do for us afterwards is far more valuable than I ever realized. I feel with great certainty that my professional and personal interactions will be approached with a greater sense of positivity, and that my productivity levels will be much better than they would have been had I not had an opportunity to simply still my mind, body, heart, and soul.

I want to encourage leaders near and far to be sure to recognize when you need to press pause, and even more so be willing to do so. The people we are called to serve, care for, and lead will thank you for it, and you may find that you are a better and more present leader when you press pause too.

Until next time, be you! Be true! Be a hope builder!

Latoya

I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting and thinking over my last 22 years in education recently. I’m not sure if it has been initiated by COVID-19 and the challenges educators faced this school year, the last 18 months in my new position, or just the journey of life that pushes us along with age and experience. But what I now have concluded and know for certain, is that it’s time for me to explore, innovate, grow, and move forward on my own terms.

I’ve gained so much clarity about my journey which is far from over, and here are a few of my latest thoughts:

1. Don’t waste time waiting. If your value isn’t being seen and added to, move your feet.

2. Because time is so precious, I can no longer engage in inauthentic relationships, personally or professionally. My time and my talent are too valuable for meaningless interactions and surface relationships.

3. Investing in my own development must be a priority. I must balance the pouring out to support others with pouring into my own growth, and use boundaries to help make sure things don’t get out of balance.

I’m clear about that and ready to move forward with purpose. I encourage all of us to think forward, and caution us all to not spend too much time reflecting or living in the past! Time flies, but it doesn’t move backwards!

Until next time, be you, be true, be a hope builder!

Latoya

Like many of us, my mind has been accustomed to anticipating the future and making decisions as a leader that best prepares the team for what is likely coming next. In fact, I find a great deal of comfort and pride in my ability to be forward thinking and believe it to be one of my best skills. But this time that we are living in has changed that. None of us can predict, with any level of certainty or confidence, what may be coming next. Stability can only be found in being sure that life, work, and play as we once knew it is in an ongoing cycle of change. Change is the new constant. And if change was difficult for humans pre-COVID, we can all expect this time period to be one of the most challenging and significant periods of our lifetime.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t share how disruptive this has been for me personally and professionally. And I believe this to be true for almost all of us. Disruption causes discomfort, but in an attempt to shift my thinking I’ve been reminded that it can also be the birthplace of innovation. I am choosing to see it as an opportunity to reinvent myself, to reinvent how we do the work in public education, and ultimately, create a better and more equitable system for all children. It seems that even with knowing we were in the midst of a public education system riddled with too much standardized testing, not enough social emotional learning or personalization, many of us find ourselves longing for what we knew-even though we know it wasn’t the best way to support and lead teaching and learning. It’s a classic lesson and it teaches us that every thing that is comfortable to us isn’t good for us. And without being forced to take on a new perspective, many of us would not be able to let go of the past-no matter how unproductive it has been for many students and educators.

Reinventing ourselves can be exciting work. We get to start over and clarify our values and beliefs. We can create healthier and happier versions of ourselves. We can make our work what we desire it to be instead of feeling stuck in a system that we know doesn’t work for all children. But this period of significance can also be accompanied by fear and anxiety. Not knowing is the height of discomfort and that is why we must solidly rely on what we do know. I am choosing to concentrate on those eternal principles that will never change: 1. Relationships matter a great deal. In the end, it’s our relationships with others that carry us through and make our lives meaningful. I intend to use this pandemic to create and build on those friendships and relationships that matter most to me. 2. The needs of the children must come first. With all the conversation regarding learning loss, it’s easy to gloss over those other needs-safety, security, food, shelter, hope-that our children all have and may even be heightened as a result of this pandemic. When we stop to ask ourselves what it is that our children need, we need to be gut level honest. We cannot make their social emotional needs less important than their need to learn. Both matter a great deal, and quite frankly it is about both need and readiness. If we don’t work to be sure our children are ready to learn, we will miss the opportunity to meet their need to learn. Let’s not assume that the only need for our children is to recover the learning they’ve lost. We all know being academically successful is built on a foundation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We need to be attuned to that with a precise focus. 3. The most difficult work can only be done successfully if we work well together. Collaboration is necessary for success, and during this time I find it to be essential. If we aren’t pulling our team together to share the load, engage in powerful discourse about next steps, and support each other, we can be sure that we’ve succumbed to an approach that is purely centered on surviving. As hard as things are, we need to survive and thrive, and in my mind the thriving part has never been more important.

I am hopeful that we can all take this opportunity to reinvent ourselves and our work in ways that benefit us and those we serve beyond this pandemic. My goal is to come out happier, stronger, and a better leader than before. To do that, I’ll have to let go of my need to anticipate what is coming next and focus on being purposefully present-enjoying every good and happy moment life offers, making the most of my experiences, and finding joy in knowing that moving through this pandemic one day at a time is more than o.k. instead of thinking ahead. I’m committed to being purposefully present and collecting all the joy I can find.

Until next time, be you. Be true. Be a hope builder.